What 顓 means
It means cautious or respectful; later senses depend on context.
Shuowen Jiezi gives the earliest explicit account supported here: a cautious, respectful appearance. It analyzes 顓 as 頁 for meaning plus 耑 for sound, so the graph wrote a word rather than picturing an object. The sources checked on 2026-09-08 did not establish an earlier inscription for this exact graph.
Later dictionaries record good, ignorant, and — through 顓 = 專 — holding power alone, as in 顓政 and the name 顓臾. Translate the word around it, never the glyph alone.
Is 顓 the same as 颛?
Yes: 顓 is traditional, and 颛 is simplified.
Use 顓 when your text, name, or source follows traditional orthography; otherwise use 颛. Copy it from the palette above to keep the form you need.
In isolation, it reads archaic or literary; its strongest anchors are historical names and classical compounds.
Do not force one English gloss onto every occurrence.
Questions people ask
1Why does 顓 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 顓
顓\9853Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.