Han character 巇

It means perilous terrain, or a fissure-like weak point. The concrete image is a steep, hazardous mountain route. In 险巇 (traditional form 險巇), the compound describes danger; in 抵巇, the character points to an opening or weakness that can be sealed or exploited.

The earliest defensible literary trail is the line 何险巇之嫉妒兮 in 楚辞·九辩, a classical Chinese poem traditionally linked to the poet Song Yu. The line describes envy as treacherous and harmful. The work is associated with the Warring States period, but its authorship and transmission are debated; this is an early literary attestation, not a secure date for the character's origin.

How did 巇 come to mean a weak point?

It carries danger from the landscape into a situation. In early Chinese texts, 巇 can describe hazardous terrain or circumstances. 鬼谷子, a classical Chinese strategy text, uses 抵巇 for noticing and dealing with a fissure in affairs—a small crack that can reveal wider disorder.

Later literary Chinese uses 险巇 (traditional form 險巇) for a perilous road or difficult circumstances. Japanese reference dictionaries also preserve the rugged-mountain and fissure-or-weakness senses, listing キ, a Japanese kana, as a reading.

What if someone sends 巇 alone?

A bare 巇 does not settle which sense is intended. As of 2026, 巇 has no widely established one-character chat meaning. Ask whether the sender means a quotation, the dangerous-path sense, or the fissure sense; do not treat it as a known reaction.

The character identity stays the same even when Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fonts draw it with regional differences. A blank box or fallback mark means the current font cannot display it.