What ␖ means
It pictures SYN, a control code that keeps synchronous data in step.
On a synchronous link, sender and receiver share a character rhythm. During pauses, SYN gives a known pattern for holding timing and appears before or between blocks.
ASCII-1963 lists SYN as “Synchronous Idle”; RFC 20 describes its role in 1969. ␖ is the readable picture, while protocol traffic carries the underlying control value.
Part of the collection
Related characters
2
Combination ideas
2IBM's BSC block-transmission protocol uses the pair to find character boundaries.
DLE (data-link escape) SYN marks synchronization in transparent-text mode, where data may include control values.
Questions people ask
1Why does ␖ 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.
More like this
8
How to type or find ␖
- Also called
- SYN
- Search it as
- SYN control · ASCII SYN · BSC · Bisync · DLE SYN
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
Windows (Word)
Windows
HTML
␖CSS
\2416Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
␖
HTML hex
␖
CSS content
content: "\2416";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E2%90%96
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.