What 벌 means
Context picks the meaning.
Hangul was devised in 1443 to make Korean easier to write. The bee sense is attested in Hunminjeongeum Haerye (1446), a guide to Hangul; open-land and clothing senses appear in Worin seokbo (1459) and Neung'eomgyeong eonhae (1461). These are record dates, not origin dates.
Ordinary Korean text; alone, 벌 is ambiguous.
Ask for the sentence before translating a lone 벌.
What it means when someone sends it to you
4 readings벌이 날아다녀
A bee flies around
벌을 받다
Receive punishment
한 벌의 한복
One traditional Korean outfit
옷을 두 벌
Two clothing sets
Questions people ask
1Why does 벌 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 벌
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType BC8C, then Alt+X to get 벌.
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 beol”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType bc8c, then Enter or Space.
HTML
벌CSS
\BC8CKorean 2-set keyboard
Type ㅂ, ㅓ, ㄹ; the Korean input method combines them. On QWERTY 2-set, use Q-J-F.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
벌
HTML hex
벌
CSS content
content: "\BC8C";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%EB%B2%8C
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.