What ס means
It represents a sound, not a whole word. In Kabbalah, a Jewish mystical tradition, the closed shape is interpreted as support and infinity; that is symbolism, not its everyday reading.
Its shape evolved with the alphabet. A 12th century BCE temple inscription at Lachish shows an early samekh as three bars joined by a vertical. Early alphabetic inscriptions include names and blessings. The modern closed form came through Aramaic, a related language and writing tradition.
Don't confuse it with
1שׂ
samekh vs sin: sin has a left dot. Both represent s in modern Hebrew, but you cannot swap them in a word's spelling.
Questions people ask
1Why does ס 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 ס
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 05E1, then Alt+X to get ס.
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 “hebrew letter samekh”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 05e1, then Enter or Space.
HTML
סCSS
\05E1samekh keyboard
Activate the standard Hebrew keyboard layout, then press the key labeled X on an English keyboard.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
ס
HTML hex
ס
CSS content
content: "\05E1";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%D7%A1
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
2
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.