What 쁜 means
It has no standalone meaning. It is a Hangul syllable block, not a word: ㅃ + ㅡ + ㄴ. In 예쁜 it belongs to “pretty/lovely,” in 기쁜 to “glad,” and in 나쁜 to “bad.” The whole Korean word supplies the reading.
Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446, stacks smaller letters called jamo into square blocks. 쁜 is one such combination, not an older sign. As of 2026, it has no separate historical meaning.
Combination ideas
3Pretty or lovely.
Glad or happy.
Bad or unpleasant.
Questions people ask
1Why does 쁜 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 쁜
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType C05C, then Alt+X to get 쁜.
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 “hangul syllable bbeun”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType c05c, then Enter or Space.
HTML
쁜CSS
\C05CKorean IME
Type ㅃ, ㅡ, then ㄴ on a Korean keyboard; they combine into 쁜.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
쁜
HTML hex
쁜
CSS content
content: "\C05C";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%EC%81%9C
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.