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阏

cjk unified ideograph-960f

CJK Unified Ideograph-960F

阏 means “to block or hold back,” but never read it alone. In historical words it names a sluice barrier, the Xiongnu wife-title 阏氏, or the calendrical term 阏逢, and the compound decides the pronunciation.

Text symbol
Also called
閼
Search it as
阏 · 阏氏 · 閼氏 · 阏逢 · 閼逢 · 阏塞 · 阏与
Shows up in
Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws

What 阏 means

It means “to block, obstruct, or hold something back.”

The earliest firm evidence is Han dynasty: the Shuowen defines 阏 as barring or obstructing under the gate radical, and Han dynasty history uses it for a sluice board controlling water. As of 2026-09-08, no securely dated pre-Han inscription for this graph was verified in this research pass.

The compound sets the reading: è in 阏塞 and 阏绝, yān in 阏氏, and yù in 阏与. Western Han history uses 阏氏 for a Xiongnu ruler's wife-title, and Classical Chinese uses 阏逢, also written 焉逢, for the stem 甲. 阏 is the simplified form of traditional 閼.

Questions people ask

1

Why does 阏 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 阏

Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 960F, then Alt+X to get 阏.
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-960f”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 960f, then Enter or Space.
HTML
阏
CSS
\960F
e
On a pinyin keyboard, enter e for 阏塞 or 阏绝.
yan
Enter yan for 阏氏; the word supplies the yān reading.
yu
Enter yu for 阏与, the place name.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
阏
HTML hex
阏
CSS content
content: "\960F";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E9%98%8F
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.

Families this belongs to

2

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Chinese, Japanese & Korean121,370 symbols

ᄀᄁᄂᄃᄄᄅᄆᄇᄈᄉᄊᄋ