What 微 means
In modern Chinese, 微 adds a sense of smallness or subtlety.
微量 means “a tiny amount”; 微笑 means “smile”; 微妙 means “subtle.” Read a lone 微 in context.
What are 微’s older meanings?
Classical Chinese uses include “hidden,” “obscure,” decline, and “not.”
Han-era Shuowen, a Chinese dictionary, defines 微 as “walking secretly.” A study reads an ancestor of 微 in Wuding-era oracle-bone divinations—ritual questions carved on bone or shell—as a Zhou group name; that reading and its link to “small” are disputed.
Questions people ask
1Why does 微 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 微
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 5FAE, then Alt+X to get 微.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “cjk unified ideograph-5fae”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 5fae, then Enter or Space.
HTML
微CSS
\5FAEPinyin IME
Dictionaries list wēi and wéi. Type wei, then select 微; entering the full word narrows candidates.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
微
HTML hex
微
CSS content
content: "\5FAE";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E5%BE%AE
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.