What 眚 means
It began as an eye disease; later texts add fault and calamity. As of 2026-09-14, no single inventor is recorded. Late-Shang oracle-bone forms come first, with bronze and manuscript forms after. The graph shows an eye obscured by a growth: its first job was naming that disease. Classical use extends it to fault, calamity, and eclipse, as in 眚災, disaster from a fault. A 2022 study argues early forms meant inspect before 眚 and 省 diverged.
Literary and historical; standalone use needs context.
Do not substitute it for 省; they are related, not interchangeable.
Don't confuse it with
1Combination ideas
1Questions people ask
1Why does 眚 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.
How to type 眚
眚\771ACodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.