What 询 means
It means asking or inquiring; its compound shows what kind.
The Shuowen Jiezi, an early Chinese character dictionary dated 100–121 CE, glosses 詢 as deliberating or seeking counsel. Dictionary records also preserve classical citations and forms on Qin-era bamboo slips and in seal script, an early formal writing style. These document older use, not the character’s invention date.
询 vs 问: which should I use?
Use 问 for everyday asking; keep 询 in established compounds. Alone, 询 can sound clipped rather than conversational.
Is 询 formal? It leans toward written Chinese, especially in established compounds.
For a casual standalone ask, use 问; 询 alone can sound clipped.
Combination ideas
2Questions people ask
1Why does 询 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 询
询\8BE2Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.