• Rare and archaic Chinese character;

No stable or standardized meaning is attested in major Chinese, Japanese, or Korean dictionaries.

Some sources record it as a variant form of a graph composed of 女 (woman) and 耳 (ear), possibly used in early manuscripts or as a phonetic borrowing in regional records.

Etymology

Likely a phono-semantic compound consisting of:

女 (여자 녀) — semantic component, indicating relation to woman, female, or feminine qualities.

耳 (귀 이) — phonetic component, giving the sound ěr / i in some reconstructions.

No entry appears in Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字), suggesting that the character arose later or remained too marginal for inclusion.

It is occasionally cited in later lexicons as a nonstandard variant with uncertain pronunciation and meaning, possibly connected to the phonetic family of 耳 (ěr) or 義 (yì).

In Hanyu Da Zidian (漢語大字典), it is indexed under the radical 女 (No. 38) with no clear semantic gloss, annotated only as “俗字” (vulgar or variant form).

Usage in Korean

There is no confirmed usage of 㛅 in standard classical or modern compounds.

It is absent from common Korean hanja lists, the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten (大漢和辭典) corpus of usable kanji, and all modern Chinese dictionaries (e.g., Xiandai Hanyu Cidian).

However, a few rare manuscript sources list it as a possible graphic variant of 妸 or 姶, both of which carry meanings related to “pleasant woman” or feminine grace — though this connection remains speculative.

Hence, 㛅 may have been:

A regional variant used for a feminine name or descriptive term.

A scribal variant of an established character containing 女.

A lost or ephemeral character without independent semantic life.

Additional notes

The Kangxi Dictionary and later Chinese compilations classify 㛅 among the uncommon or obsolete graphs under the radical 女.

The Unihan database lists its structure as “⿰女耳” (woman + ear) and provides no modern Mandarin reading or meaning, confirming its purely graphic survival.

As such, 㛅 functions today mainly as a philological curiosity, an example of the fluid and experimental nature of early Chinese character formation, when scribes sometimes created new forms by pairing radicals for sound or appearance without widespread adoption.

No attested Sino-Korean or Sino-Japanese reading survives; it is not included in KS X 1001 or JIS kanji sets.

Summary:

㛅 is an obscure, extinct character under the 女 radical, probably devised as a graphic or phonetic variant. Its composition (女 + 耳) suggests an association with femininity or speech, but it left no trace in transmitted vocabulary. It remains a ghost-character preserved only in Unicode and paleographic indexes — a testament to the vast, now-silent diversity of the early Chinese script tradition.

Kangxi radical:38, + 6
Strokes:9
Unicode:U+36C5
Cangjie input:
  • 女尸十 (VSJ)
Composition:
  • ⿰ 女 耳

Neighboring characters in the dictionary

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