What 셓 means
It means “three” in Middle Korean.
The earliest attestation of 셓 is in Seokbo Sangjeol, a Korean text from 1447; modern Korean writes the word 셋.
Keep 셓 for historical Korean
The 1446 introduction to Hangul, Hunminjeongeum, says it was designed to write Korean speech, which differed from Chinese. Hangul letters combine into syllable blocks: 셓 combines initial consonant ㅅ, vowel ㅔ, and final consonant ㅎ.
In Middle Korean, final ㅎ could change or disappear depending on the following particle, a short grammatical ending attached to a word. As that pattern changed, ㅎ was lost and the word developed into 셋.
A deeper link to a numeral from Baekje, an ancient Korean kingdom, has been proposed, but that connection remains uncertain.
Historical and scholarly: it marks an older Korean spelling, so it belongs in historical texts rather than ordinary present-day writing.
For modern Korean “three,” use 셋; reserve 셓 for the historical form.
Who writes 셓
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Don't confuse it with
1
Questions people ask
1Why does 셓 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.
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How to type or find 셓
- Search it as
- 셓 · 셋 · Middle Korean · old Korean three · historical Korean spelling · Korean numeral three
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
셓\C153Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.