What 綉 means
It means embroidery, finished needlework, or a richly decorated textile.
The Shuowen, an early Chinese dictionary, describes 繡 as a five-colour thread pattern. A dictionary reference places 繡 in texts from the Warring States period, and the Zhengzitong dictionary records 綉. The word also names finished embroidery, brocade, or figurative beauty; it belongs to the world of cloth and formal dress.
Why are 綉 and 繡 different?
綉 is a variant spelling of 繡 with the same embroidery sense.
綉 replaces the 肅 component in 繡 with 秀; Taiwan's Ministry of Education classifies it as an orthographic variant.
A Ming printed edition of a work titled Hongmei ji uses both forms in one text, while another edition regularizes those passages to 繡. That history makes 綉 a variant or historical spelling choice, not a separate embroidery concept.
This variant or historical spelling keeps the embroidery sense unchanged.
Who writes 綉
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Related characters
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Questions people ask
2Why does 綉 display as a box?
Your current font may lack the glyph. Taiwan's CNS11643 character registry stated as of 2024 that Windows 10 and later included it, but the particular app or font still needs coverage.
Can 綉 be read as tòu?
Yes. Mandarin Pinyin tòu is roughly “tow” with a falling tone and is recorded for a piece of cotton cloth; xiù, beginning with a soft sh-like sound that glides into “yo,” is the embroidery reading. In older writing, context distinguishes them.
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How to type or find 綉
- Search it as
- 綉 meaning · Chinese embroidery character · 繡 · 繍 · 绣 · xiu · tou
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
綉\7D89xiu and select 綉 from the candidates.VFHDS, the sequence listed for this character.Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.