Variant of 肯

It is a rare variant of 肯, meaning “willing” or “agreeing.”

In modern Chinese, 肻 is read through 肯: it marks willingness or consent. The same character family has older dictionary senses, including meat attached to a bone and rhetorical phrases meaning “how could?” or “would it?” Those readings depend on the phrase; they are not separate everyday meanings of 肻.

Where did 肻 come from?

It is a later variant in the 肎–肯 character family.

The Shuowen Jiezi, an early Chinese character dictionary, defines 肎 as meat left attached to a bone and also glosses it as a bone without meat. Its entry explains the form through 肉 (“flesh”) and a shortened element associated with removing flesh from bone.

Later, clerical script—a formal style of Chinese writing—gave the family the form 肯. The later dictionary Zhengzitong records 肻 as a 俗字, or nonstandard written variant, of 肎. These records place 肻 in the same historical character family.

How do I type 肻?

Enter 80BB through a Unicode input method.

A Chinese input method turns keystrokes into candidate characters, and its list may omit this rare variant under 肯. If it does, enter the code point with a Unicode input method.