What 罊 means
It describes an emptied vessel, then anything used up completely.
The Shuowen Jiezi, a dictionary from China's Eastern Han period in the 2nd century CE, analyzes 罊 as 缶 (“vessel”) plus 毄, a component traditionally used to hint at pronunciation. This links the word to taking the contents out of a container.
The Erya, an early Chinese reference work, groups 罊 with terms meaning “completely gone.” A commentary from the Jin dynasty preserves a Jiangdong regional gloss, “exhausted to the limit.” Together, these glosses extend the vessel-specific sense to complete depletion.
Classical and dictionary-oriented; its documented meanings belong to classical Chinese texts and reference works.
If someone sends it alone, start with “emptied” or “used up”; let the surrounding message decide whether the sense is literal.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does 罊 show as a box?
The font used by the app may not include a drawing for 罊. A box is a placeholder for a character the font cannot render; the text can still contain 罊.
How to type 罊
罊\7F4ACodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.