What ㌺ means
It spells Japanese ペンス (“pence”) in one character.
The loanword ペンス appears in Fukuzawa Yukichi’s book 西洋事情 (“Conditions in the West”), an account of Western affairs from 1866–70.
Japanese 組文字 (“characters fitted together”) compresses kana into one character-width cell for fixed grids and vertical type. The square affects layout, not reading; compatibility normalization expands ㌺ to ペンス.
Don't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
1Does ㌺ represent a specific amount?
No. It writes the currency word ペンス (“pence”); a number supplies the amount.
How to type ㌺
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 333A, then Alt+X to get ㌺.
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 “square pensu”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 333a, then Enter or Space.
HTML
㌺CSS
\333ACharacter picker
Search SQUARE PENSU, or enter 333A in a picker that accepts hexadecimal Unicode values.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
㌺
HTML hex
㌺
CSS content
content: "\333A";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E3%8C%BA
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.