What 羶 means
Its default sense is a sheep-specific meat smell. It can widen to other animal or meat odors, but mutton is the core.
On the 羶 origin question, the defensible anchor is the Han-era Shuowen Jiezi: it records 羴 as sheep smell and 羶 as its alternate with 亶. I found no defensible pre-Han date for the exact glyph in this search.
In classical Chinese the smell becomes attraction: Zhuangzi pictures people drawn to a virtuous ruler like ants to mutton. The same image survives in 群蟻附羶 meaning crowds chasing profit or power. 腥, 臊, and 香 are neighboring food-and-ritual smell words.
Which form should I type?
Choose 羶 for this exact character. Type shan or shān in a Chinese IME and pick 羶 from the homophone candidates. A Cangjie dictionary lists 廿手卜田一.
A 羶 missing glyph box or odd outline usually means font coverage, not a different character. Han glyph shapes vary by device and font. 膻 and 羴 can suit another text, but they are not this exact glyph.
Literary and specialized; use it where the reader can handle classical or traditional-character vocabulary.
Do not read it as generic smell: the default is sheep or mutton odor.
Don't confuse it with
2Combination ideas
1Questions people ask
1Why does 羶 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 羶
羶\7FB6Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.