What ⽐ means
It marks the “compare” radical in character indexes. Radical-stroke indexes group Han characters (Chinese characters used across East Asia) by a radical, then by leftover strokes. Forms of 比 appear in Shang oracle-bone inscriptions and Western Zhou bronze inscriptions; Shang oracle bones were used for divination. The Han-dynasty dictionary Shuowen Jiezi glosses 比 as “place side by side.” The eighteenth-century Kangxi Dictionary standardized lookup by radical and remaining strokes.
Technical reference sign; in a message, ⽐ suggests character lookup or text processing.
Use 比 as ordinary text; ⽐ marks its radical role.
Part of the collection
Don't confuse it with
1
Questions people ask
1Why does ⽐ show as a box on some devices?
Not every system ships a font for the Kangxi Radicals block. Where none is installed, the character shows as an empty box; adding a font such as Noto fixes it. The character itself is still correct and copies correctly.
More like this
10
How to type or find ⽐
- Search it as
- Kangxi radical · compare radical
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
⽐\2F50Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.