What 刖 means
It names a historical legal penalty, not an ordinary cutting verb. The earliest surviving written evidence for 刖 appears in late Shang oracle-bone records. The attested sequence continues through Qin manuscripts, small-seal forms, clerical writing, and regular script, so the modern glyph is one stage in an evolving written tradition.
Its original purpose was penal enforcement. Shang divinations ask whether to apply it and whether the victim would survive; later legal texts place it among the Five Punishments. Other records assign some victims to guard gates or enclosures.
How did 刖 change over time?
Its referent shifted from state punishment to historical metaphor. In 167 BCE, Emperor Wen of Han abolished the main mutilating corporal punishments and replaced them with other penalties; officials still argued for or against restoring them through the Song period.
Later literature reuses the image in 刖趾適屨: cut the toe to fit the shoe, then force a solution to fit an inherited rule. The related form 跀 retains the foot component, while 剕 is another historical name for the same foot-cutting punishment.
Classical and legal-historical; it carries a literal reference to bodily punishment.
Do not use it as a decorative stand-in for “cut”; it names a mutilating punishment.
Don't confuse it with
3Combination ideas
3Questions people ask
1Why does 刖 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type 刖
刖\5216Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.