What ⎄ means
It marks the Compose Character function. The Compose key starts a sequence of keystrokes that produces a character not assigned its own key. The symbol labels that input command; it is not the character produced by the sequence.
The keyboard function came before its Unicode label
A DEC VT220 manual from 1984 describes a Compose Character key for entering accented and other multinational characters missing from the keyboard. The international keyboard-symbol standard ISO/IEC 9995-7 gave this function a language-neutral sign in 1994.
A 1998 Unicode committee record shows an earlier draft label, “Square Bisecting Circle (compose),” before the adopted name “Composition Symbol.”
How do I type ⎄?
Use a Unicode-entry tool built into your system or editor. A Compose-key sequence produces its resulting character; the key-function label is a separate character.
Technical keyboard notation: it labels an input function and belongs in keyboard legends or instructions.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why is the composition symbol missing from my font?
It may be. The active or fallback font may lack a glyph for it, or draw it differently; the character itself remains the same.
How to type ⎄
⎄\2384Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.