What 萋 means
Plants growing thick and vigorous.
The Shijing, an early Chinese poetry collection, uses 萋 for thick plant growth. A traditional gloss gives 草盛: grass flourishing.
萋萋 keeps the plant sense. Dictionaries also record spreading clouds and intricate patterns.
Literary Chinese; expect classical writing and dictionaries, not everyday chat.
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readings萋萋 with grass or trees
Thick, thriving vegetation.
萋萋 with a cloud noun
Clouds spreading or moving.
萋 with a pattern noun
An intricate, interwoven pattern.
Questions people ask
1Why does 萋 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 萋
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 840B, then Alt+X to get 萋.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “cjk unified ideograph-840b”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 840b, then Enter or Space.
HTML
萋CSS
\840BMandarin input
With Mandarin pinyin input, type qi or qi1, then choose 萋.
Japanese input
Enter せいせい in Japanese input for literary 萋萋.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
萋
HTML hex
萋
CSS content
content: "\840B";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E8%90%8B
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.