What 穗 means
It means a grain ear: a cereal stem’s flower or fruit cluster. 麦穗 is a wheat ear; 稻穗, a rice ear. It can also mean a tassel.
An early Chinese dictionary, Shuowen, describes 𥝩 as flowering grain people harvest; 穗 is another form, with 禾 (“grain”) and 惠 as a sound clue. A local history from the Jin-dynasty, 《广州记》 (“Guangzhou Record”), tells of five grain-bearing goats; later versions add immortal riders and a blessing against famine, behind 穗城 and 羊城.
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsThe word 麦穗 or 稻穗
A literal wheat or rice ear.
Standalone 穗 in Guangzhou writing
A shorthand for Guangzhou, not a crop.
Questions people ask
1Why does 穗 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 穗
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 7A57, then Alt+X to get 穗.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “cjk unified ideograph-7a57”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 7a57, then Enter or Space.
HTML
穗CSS
\7A57Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
穗
HTML hex
穗
CSS content
content: "\7A57";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E7%A9%97
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.