What 徳 means
It means moral virtue, good character, or beneficial influence.
The history of 徳 traces to Chinese 德, first clearly attested on bronze vessels in the early Western Zhou dynasty. Proposed Shang oracle-bone forms (divination marks on bone or shell) remain disputed. Early use tied ritual to a ruler’s right to govern. Later Confucian ethics stressed personal virtue; Daoist thought linked de, life-giving power, to Dao (“the Way”).
Why does 徳 sometimes appear as 德?
德 is older; 徳 is Japan’s standard form.
Japan standardized 徳 as a simpler form of 德 in 1949; only the writing differs.
Part of the collection
Who writes 徳
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What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsA person whose character earns respect.
Don't confuse it with
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Related characters
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Questions people ask
1Why does 徳 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.
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How to type or find 徳
- Search it as
- 徳 meaning · 徳 history · 徳用 meaning · 徳 vs 德 · toku meaning
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
徳\5FB3Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.