What 阱 means
It names a pit made for a purpose.
The Rites of Zhou, an old text on ritual and government, describes spring pits filled in autumn. A 2019 study proposed that marks on bones used for divination were early 阱; the reading is debated. The familiar form appears in Warring States texts.
阝 on the left marks terrain; 井 on the right cues sound.
Don't confuse it with
1Combination ideas
1A pit for animals, or a figurative trap.
Questions people ask
1Why does 阱 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 阱
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 9631, then Alt+X to get 阱.
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-9631”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 9631, then Enter or Space.
HTML
阱CSS
\9631How do I type 阱?
With a Chinese Pinyin keyboard (Latin-letter input), type jing and select 阱 from the suggestions.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
阱
HTML hex
阱
CSS content
content: "\9631";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E9%98%B1
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.