What 蹄 means
It names an animal’s hoof.
The sense can extend to the whole foot. 蹄铁 means a horseshoe; 马蹄 names a horse’s hoof.
In 得兔忘蹄, 蹄 is the rabbit snare. The idiom says to forget the means once the goal is reached.
Hoof is neutral; the trap sense belongs to a classical idiom.
In 得兔忘蹄, read “trap,” not “hoof.”
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readings马蹄
A horse’s hoof
蹄铁
A horseshoe
得兔忘蹄
Rabbit trap; forgetting the means after success
Combination ideas
2Keep moving without pause.
Forget the means after reaching the goal.
Questions people ask
1Why does 蹄 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 蹄
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 8E44, then Alt+X to get 蹄.
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-8e44”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 8e44, then Enter or Space.
HTML
蹄CSS
\8E44Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
蹄
HTML hex
蹄
CSS content
content: "\8E44";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E8%B9%84
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.