CJK Unified Ideograph-72B2

It means 豺: a dhole or wolf-like wild dog.

犲 is not a newly invented sign. The recognisable lineage reaches a 豺-form bronze inscription from the early Western Zhou, then appears in the Shuowen seal-script tradition and Qin slips; the 犲 spelling is documented later as a variant in Chinese character dictionaries.

Its original job was lexical: naming a wild animal. The graph pairs a beast component with 才 for sound; 豺 uses 豸, 犲 swaps in 犭. Japanese dictionaries preserve the animal reading as sai or yama-inu. In Chinese literary usage, 豺狼 could then label a vicious person or tyrant, a shift preserved in the Han-era story behind 豺狼當道.

Should I use 犲 or 豺?

Use 豺 for general readers; reserve 犲 for variant or historical styling.

They share the chái reading and animal sense. The difference is written form: 豺 uses 豸, while 犲 uses 犭. A variant dictionary records 犲 as an alternate form found in historical dictionaries, so it is legitimate — but it reads as a deliberate character choice, not the everyday form.

What does it mean when someone sends 犲?

As of 2026, it has no established emoji-style social meaning.

Treat it as a rare character reference: a quotation, a variant spelling, or a check of the exact glyph. If the sender means the animal or the cruel-person metaphor, the familiar spelling is 豺 or 豺狼.