What 蚜 means
蚜 means “aphid,” most often in 蚜虫.
The earlier Chinese character dictionary 《说文》 has no entry for 蚜; 《玉篇》, another character dictionary completed in 543 CE, records it simply as an insect. The left part 虫 signals an insect category; right-side 牙 points to the sound.
Other dictionary-listed Chinese names for aphids include 竹虫, 木虱, 腻虫, and 蜜虫. 《康熙字典》, a Chinese dictionary, also records a separate verb sense: “to grind or polish.”
A literal, specialized Chinese term for an insect.
Don't confuse it with
1Combination ideas
1The usual Chinese compound for “aphid.”
Questions people ask
1Why does 蚜 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 蚜
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 869C, then Alt+X to get 蚜.
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-869c”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 869c, then Enter or Space.
HTML
蚜CSS
\869CMandarin Pinyin input
Type ya in a Pinyin input method and choose yá; type yachong to find 蚜虫.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
蚜
HTML hex
蚜
CSS content
content: "\869C";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E8%9A%9C
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.