What 髁 means
In medical Chinese, 髁 names a condyle. It appears in terms such as 股骨髁.
The earliest known dictionary entry is in the Shuowen Jiezi, a Chinese character dictionary completed around 100 CE. It glosses 髁 as 髀骨 (“thigh bone”), analyzing it as 骨 (“bone”) plus 果, its sound element. Later dictionaries retain thigh and knee senses.
Technical anatomical vocabulary.
For an ankle, use 踝; 髁 names a condyle.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does 髁 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 髁
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 9AC1, then Alt+X to get 髁.
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-9ac1”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 9ac1, then Enter or Space.
HTML
髁CSS
\9AC1Mandarin pinyin IME
Type ke in a Mandarin pinyin IME and select 髁 from the candidates.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
髁
HTML hex
髁
CSS content
content: "\9AC1";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E9%AB%81
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.