What 毛 means
毛 means hair, fur, feathers, or fine growth.
Documented forms include Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, followed by later forms in bamboo-and-silk manuscripts and small-seal script. They show the character evolving through Chinese writing traditions. Chinese and Japanese use also extends 毛 to fine plant growth, tiny amounts, or rough, unfinished work; in Chinese prices, 毛 can name a small currency unit.
How is 毛 read in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean?
The reading depends on the language and word.
Mandarin Chinese reads 毛 as máo in pinyin, roughly like “maow” with the pitch rising. Japanese readings include け (ke) and モウ (mō). In Korean, the reading of this Chinese-origin character is 모 (mo).
What does 毛 mean when someone sends it?
A lone 毛 does not reveal the sender’s intended meaning.
Ask for the surrounding phrase and language. In political talk, 五毛党 is a mocking accusation that someone is paid to post pro-government comments; a 2015 glossary records this label. The accusation alone is not evidence of payment.
The basic character is neutral; its compounds can sound affectionate, critical, or politically loaded.
毛手毛脚 can describe careless handling or unwelcome touching; read the situation before treating it as playful.
Who writes 毛
Loading…
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readingsHair, fur, or feathers is the literal starting point; the phrase can shift it.
Related characters
2
Combination ideas
2Questions people ask
1Why does 毛 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.
More like this
10
Collections with 毛
3
How to type or find 毛
- Search it as
- mao · máo · 毛 reading · 毛 meaning · 毛毛雨 · 毛孩子 · 毛手毛脚 · 五毛党
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
毛\6BDBCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.