What 蔡 means
In a name, 蔡 is the Chinese surname Cai.
In Pinyin, the Mandarin spelling system using Latin letters, the surname is written Cài. Cai, Tsai, Chua, Chuah, Choy, and Chai are spellings used in different Chinese-language communities; they do not denote different characters.
Older texts also use 蔡 for wild grass, a tortoise used in rituals to seek answers, and the ancient state of Cai; the surname is linked to that state. Traditional character analysis treats 祭, the lower part of 蔡, as its sound component. A 2015 study of ancient writing tentatively identifies 蔡 in a damaged oracle-bone inscription—a divination record carved on bone or shell—and reports later forms on bronze objects; the identification is debated.
In modern use, 蔡 is primarily a proper-name character; its plant, ritual, and state senses belong to older writing.
Part of the collection
Who writes 蔡
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What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsSurname 蔡; spelling in Latin letters varies by romanization tradition.
Don't confuse it with
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Related characters
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Questions people ask
1Why does 蔡 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 蔡
- Also called
- Cai · Tsai · Chua
- Search it as
- cài
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
蔡\8521Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.