What 薊 means
It names a thistle and, in historical Chinese, a place. 《说文解字》, an early Chinese dictionary, glosses the plant through 芺, another plant name.
The earliest recorded Japanese spelling of あざみ appears as 阿佐美 in 新撰字鏡 (898–901), a Japanese dictionary.
Context identifies whether 薊 is a plant term or a historical place name.
Alone, it leaves the language and sense unclear.
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsIn a Chinese herbal passage
A thistle, discussed as food or medicine.
In historical Chinese geography
Ji, the ancient capital of Yan.
Questions people ask
2How is 薊 read in Japanese?
あざみ is the Japanese word for thistle.
What is the difference between 大薊 and 小薊?
Traditional Chinese herbals distinguish two medicinal plants; regional usage sometimes mixes their names.
How to type 薊
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 858A, then Alt+X to get 薊.
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-858a”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 858a, then Enter or Space.
HTML
薊CSS
\858ACodes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
薊
HTML hex
薊
CSS content
content: "\858A";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E8%96%8A
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.