Plate

皿 means a plate or dish. Japanese uses it for plates and to count servings; Mandarin uses it for food vessels. Ancient forms already showed a container.

Text symbol

What 皿 means

A shallow food vessel.

Oracle-bone divination and bronze inscriptions show early vessel forms, though the exact type is uncertain. After China's Warring States period, the sign grew rare as vessel names changed; bronze forms could add 金, the character for metal.

How is 皿 read in Japanese?

Usually さら, roughly “sah-rah.” It is the everyday Japanese word for a plate. Medieval writing increasingly used 皿 instead of 盤 for さら; by the Edo period, it had replaced 盤.

一皿 counts one serving. In 大皿, さら changes to ざら.

Who writes 皿

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What it means when someone sends it to you

2 readings

A plate being washed.

Combination ideas

Japanese: one serving.

Japanese: large plate; read おおざら.

Japanese: small side plate.

Questions people ask

Why does 皿 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.