How to Write 㐌 (yí) — Meaning “Ancient character (variant of 'it' or 'that')”

Imagine the top horizontal line as a hat and the left-falling stroke as a person's body, with the bottom hook as a walking cane. This person ('he' or 'that person') uses the cane to point to 'that' thing — linking to the character's ancient meaning of 'it' or 'that'.

The stroke order is: first the top horizontal, then the left-falling stroke, and finally the hook (乙) from left to right. A common mistake is making the left-falling stroke too long or crossing it into the hook; keep it short and above the hook.

㐌 has a horizontal stroke above a left-falling stroke then a hook, while 乞 (qǐ, 'beg') starts with a left-falling stroke, then a horizontal, then a hook. 习 (xí, 'practice') is a different shape: a horizontal hook with a dot inside — it has no left-falling stroke.

㐌 is extremely rare and no longer used in common vocabulary. It appears only in ancient texts or as a historical variant of characters like 它 (tā, 'it') or 那 (nà, 'that'), and occasionally as a rare surname. You will not encounter it in everyday Chinese.

Common words containing 㐌 include: 㐌字 (yí zì) — The character '㐌'; 写㐌 (xiě yí) — Write the character '㐌'; 读㐌 (dú yí) — Read '㐌'.