What 醐 means
Second half of 醍醐, never a word alone.
A later-added Shuowen entry defines it through 醍醐, the essence of churned dairy curd. The earliest Japanese example cited is in 三教指帰, around 797.
Chinese Buddhism used 醍醐 to render Sanskrit maṇḍa-sarpi, refined butterfat, as an image of the highest teaching. As of 2026, Japanese 醍醐味 also means the best part or deepest enjoyment.
Specialized and compound-bound: its meaning lives in 醍醐 and related words.
Write 醍醐 for the established word; 醐 alone leaves the reference incomplete.
Combination ideas
3Questions people ask
1Why does 醐 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 醐
醐\9190Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.