Chinese character 盻

盻 means a hostile glare or angry stare. Its left-side 目 (“eye”) gives the meaning; right-side 兮 is the sound component in the traditional analysis. The Eastern Han dictionary 《說文解字》 defines it as 恨视, “to look with hostility.” A Chinese story from the Three Kingdoms period uses 瞋目盻之 for a warrior glaring at an enemy.

The Mencius, a classical Chinese work on government and society, uses the line 使民盻盻然. Dictionaries read it as people laboring without rest, though philologists dispute whether 盻 is the right character in the transmitted text. The repeated form 盻盻 therefore has a reading tied to this quotation, not a general modern sense of work.

Why is 盻 confused with 盼 and 眄?

They are three distinct characters. 盻 has 兮 on the right and means a hostile glare; 盼 has 分 and usually means hope or expectation, with an older sense of clear, beautiful eyes. 眄 has 丏 and means looking sideways. If a sentence is about waiting, 盼 fits; if it is about a sidelong glance, 眄 fits.

The confusion is older than a learner’s typo. A philological study traces a variant written form used for 眄 in Sui–Tang texts and for 盼 in Song texts. When reading older editions, check sentence context and other copies; resemblance alone cannot settle which character was intended.

Someone sent me 盻—should I be worried?

Treat it as literary and ask what text it came from. As of 2026-09-11, 盻 had no established chat meaning. It may be a quotation, a character someone is asking about, or a mix-up with 盼; the old hostile-stare sense alone does not show that the sender is angry. Ask about the surrounding words before reading tone into it.