Chinese character 矔

矔 covers bright or fierce eyes and movements of the gaze. An early surviving record appears in the Fāngyán, a regional-word glossary compiled before 24 CE: it gives 矔 for angry-looking eyes and for turning the eyes in the historical Liang–Yi region, while its Wu–Chu entry gives 眮. The Shuowen Jiezi, an early character dictionary completed around 100 CE, describes eyes rich in essence or brightness. Later pronunciation and character dictionaries also record wide-open eyes, closing one eye, and the eye socket. The senses stay tied to the eye, but the action changes with the passage.

Why does 矔 have several eye-related senses?

Its parts signal an eye-related meaning and a sound. The analysis is 目, which marks the eye-related meaning, plus 雚, which supplies the sound. That connects 矔 to 觀, 灌, 鸛, and 瓘 by sound, not by meaning. In the Zuo Tradition, a chronicle from China's Spring and Autumn period, 鳞矔 is the personal name of an official of the state of Song; it names a person, not an eye action.

How do I type 矔 when pinyin misses it?

Enter guàn in Mandarin pinyin, or use Cangjie BUTRG. Pinyin spells Mandarin sounds with Latin letters, but a rare character may not appear in a pinyin lookup. Cangjie is a shape-based Chinese input method; its code for 矔 is BUTRG (component sequence 月山廿口土). If 矔 appears as a box, the font may lack it. As of 2024, Taiwan’s CNS 11643 registry lists the character among those covered by Windows 10 and later default fonts.