Wine Cup Character

A wine cup, then drinking or urging someone to drink.

Early Chinese writing includes a bronze-inscription form, used on bronze objects, and a later small-seal form, an old standardized script. Both pair a vessel element with a sound element. The vessel part changes: the bronze form uses 爵, an ancient ritual wine cup, while the later form uses 角, a horn-shaped vessel element.

Chinese dictionaries extend the cup's name to drinking and to urging another person to drink. 羽觴 is a small cup with wing-like handles; 曲水流觴 names a winding-stream banquet where drinking was paired with poetry.

What does 觴 mean when someone sends it?

Usually, it points to a cup, a toast, or a classical quotation.

A lone 觴 does not state an emotion by itself. Read the surrounding words: it may name a vessel, describe drinking, or urge someone to drink.

Wang Xizhi's Lanting gathering in 353 is the famous setting for 曲水流觴: guests drank from cups carried along a winding stream and composed verse.

How is 觴 used in Japanese?

In Japanese, it names a literary sake cup or banquet.

Japanese dictionaries use 觴 for a sake cup or drinking vessel, and by extension a banquet. The first cited Japanese example dates to 758.