What 衤 means
It marks the 衣 family: clothes and coverings.
It comes from 衣, a pictograph of an upper garment, attested in Shang period oracle-bone and bronze inscriptions. Nobody invented 衤 separately: writers squeezed 衣 into the narrow left side.
The full 衣 later also meant “to wear” in pre-Qin texts. 衣 can stand whole, sit underneath, or split apart; 衤 is only the left-side shape. Later clerical and regular scripts simplified both 衤 and 礻 until the clothes and ritual signs nearly matched.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does 衤 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 衤
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 8864, then Alt+X to get 衤.
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-8864”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 8864, then Enter or Space.
HTML
衤CSS
\8864how do I type 衤
Copy it from the palette above, or enter U+8864 with a Unicode-capable input method.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
衤
HTML hex
衤
CSS content
content: "\8864";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E8%A1%A4
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.