What 찹 means
In 찹쌀, 찹 marks stickiness; 쌀 means rice. Together, they name glutinous rice.
An earlier form of 찹쌀 appears in a 1489 record for rice used in steaming and rice cakes.
As of 2026, Korean tennis terminology lists 찹 for a downward chop stroke.
Why does Unicode call 찹 “cab”?
“Cab” is a component label, not a Korean translation.
Unicode combines the short labels C, A and B for 찹’s first consonant, vowel and final consonant. Korean reads it roughly like “chap,” ending in p.
Neutral in Korean writing; alone, 찹 reads like a fragment.
For the rice, use 찹쌀; 찹 alone is not the food’s name.
Questions people ask
1Why does 찹 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 찹
찹\CC39Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.