CJK Unified Ideograph-7658

It names a severe disease, especially pestilence or an ulcerous illness.

The trace verified here starts in Qin bamboo slips, where 厲/癘 appears in an official diagnostic report for a grave illness with nasal damage and ulceration: a label for medical and administrative handling. The Eastern Han Shuowen tradition later defines 癘 as an evil disease and analyzes it as 疒 plus a reduced phonetic component.

Its history is a widening, not an invention. Older sources let it overlap with 癩-like disease; later texts use it broadly for epidemic illness and plague writing. Do not flatten it to one English gloss.

What does 癘 mean in a message?

Treat it as a disease term, not a reaction.

Alone, it carries no reliable casual tone. Read it alone as a quotation, dictionary lookup, or specialist term and ask for the source. As of 2026, the sources checked document it as a disease character and in historical or medical compounds, not as a standard chat reaction.

The compound does the work: 疫癘 points to an epidemic, 瘴癘 to pestilential disease linked to hot, humid regions, and 癘氣 to the contagious pathogenic force in traditional Chinese medicine.

Is 癘 the same as 疠?

Yes—疠 is the simplified variant of 癘.

Match the form to the surrounding orthography. The visible shape comes from a Han font, so a regional or font difference is not a meaning change or emoji variant.

For 癘 vs 癩, follow the word: 癩 is the clearer leprosy character, while older writing lets 癘 overlap with it and also cover epidemic disease. In Japanese, as of 2026, 癘 remains a kanji for contagious disease or leprosy, read れい, らい, or えやみ.