What 苾 means
It means a rich, fragrant smell.
Pronounced bì, it belongs to old ritual language: as of 2026, the earliest trail this research could verify is the Book of Poetry, where 苾芬孝祀 frames scent as proof of a filial sacrifice done right. Think incense-report, not perfume-ad.
Later writers stretch it. 苾 can label aromatic plants or the warm atmosphere around good company — fragrance as approval.
Why does 苾芻 mean a monk?
It spells bhikṣu by sound, not sense.
Buddhist Chinese needed a way to write Sanskrit bhikṣu, so 苾芻 was drafted for its sound; reading 苾 as fragrant there sends you the wrong way. Lexicons add one more twist by recording 苾芻 as a plant name, so the surrounding passage — monastery or herbal list — picks the winner.
Which forms are connected to 苾?
They are dictionary relatives, not free swaps.
The fragrance sense is linked with 飶, while lotus-rhizome entries group 苾 with 蔤, 𦰷, 𦻩, and 藌. Copy the exact form from the palette above; swapping in a relative can turn ritual scent into botany.
Alone, it reads literary or dictionary-like; in a compound, surrounding words outrank the standalone gloss.
Do not translate 苾芻 one character at a time.
Who writes 苾
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What it means when someone sends it to you
5 readingsFragrant or aromatic; a literary gloss.
Combination ideas
3Questions people ask
1Why does 苾 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.
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How to type or find 苾
- Search it as
- bi · bi4 · bì · fragrance · fragrant · aroma · 苾芬 · 苾芻
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
苾\82FECodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.