What 醧 means
It means a private banquet where people drink together.
An old dictionary explanation places 醧 among relatives sharing wine after a rite and says that people unable to drink may stop. The emphasis is on the private occasion and its etiquette, not on wine in general.
What is 醧's earliest evidence?
The earliest recorded source is the Han-period dictionary Shuowen. It shows 醧 in Small Seal script, an early standardized Chinese script.
The graph combines 酉, a wine-related component, with 區, a sound component: 區 points to a sound family, not to the banquet's meaning.
In the Western Jin period, poet Zuo Si used 醧讌 in 《魏都賦》, a long poem describing Wei's capital, for a restrained private feast. Older commentary contrasts 醧 with 飫, a more formal banquet term.
Should I send 醧 by itself?
Usually not without context or a gloss.
Outside a discussion of classical writing, readers may not recognize this rare word. A short gloss makes clear that you mean an old private drinking banquet.
Archaic and scholarly: 醧 fits a gloss, quotation, or deliberate reference to classical Chinese.
Alone, it can look like an unexplained rare word; gloss it outside a classical-text setting.
Questions people ask
2Can I use 醧 to mean “cheers”?
No. Its classical meaning is a private drinking occasion, so treat it as a historical reference; use a familiar modern toast when you need an immediate reading.
Why does 醧 appear as a box?
It can. A font without this character may show a missing-character box or fallback glyph; choose a font with CJK coverage.
How to type 醧
醧\91A7Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.