Ideographic Description Characters is a Unicode block containing graphic characters used for describing CJK ideographs. They are used in Ideographic Description Sequences (IDS) to provide a description of an ideograph, in terms of what other ideographs make it up and how they are laid out relative to one another.[3] An IDS provides the reader with a description of an ideograph that cannot be represented properly, usually because it is not encoded in Unicode; rendering systems are not intended to automatically compose the pieces into a complete ideograph, and the descriptions are not standardized.
U+2FF0 to U+2FFB were introduced from GBK; U+2FFC to U+2FFF were devised later and introduced in Unicode 15.1 (2023).
Ideographic Description Sequences are sequences of characters that represent a Chinese character structure as defined by the Unicode standard.
Below are the 16 characters as defined by Unicode in this block:
Unicode
Char
Meaning
Example 1
IDS
Example 2
IDS
U+2FF0
⿰
Two components combined left to right
相
⿰木目
𠁢
⿰丨㇍
U+2FF1
⿱
Two components combined above to below
杏
⿱木口
𠚤
⿱𠂊丶
U+2FF2
⿲
Three components combined left to middle and right
衍
⿲彳氵亍
𠂗
⿲丿夕乚
U+2FF3
⿳
Three components combined above to middle and below
京
⿳亠口小
𠋑
⿳亼目口
U+2FF4
⿴
One component fully wrapping another component
回
⿴囗口
𠀬
⿴㐁人
U+2FF5
⿵
One component surround three sides of another component (opening at bottom)
凰
⿵几皇
𧓉
⿵齊虫
U+2FF6
⿶
One component surround three sides of another component (opening at top)
凶
⿶凵㐅
义
⿶乂丶
U+2FF7
⿷
One component surround three sides of another component (opening at right)
匠
⿷匚斤
𧆬
⿷虎九
U+2FF8
⿸
One component surround top and left side of another component
病
⿸疒丙
𤆯
⿸耂火
U+2FF9
⿹
One component surround top and right side of another component
戒
⿹戈廾
𢧌
⿹或壬
U+2FFA
⿺
One component surround bottom and left side of another component
超
⿺走召
𥘶
⿺礼分
U+2FFB
⿻
Two components overlapped
巫
⿻工从
𣏃
⿻木⿻コ一
U+2FFC
One component surround three sides of another component (opening at left)
㕚
叉丶
𬺹
コ二
U+2FFD
One component surround bottom and right side of another component
氷
水丶
斗
⺀十
U+2FFE
Horizontal reflection
卐
卍
𣥄
正
U+2FFF
Rotation
𠕄
凹
𠄔
予
Two other related ideographic description characters are not encoded in this Unicode block, but of which may be used in ideographic description sequences:
The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Ideographic Description Characters block:
Umamaheswaran, V. S.; Ksar, Mike (1998-07-02), "9.5", Unconfirmed Meeting Minutes, WG 2 Meeting #34, Redmond, WA, USA; 1998-03-16--20, The original proposal was to use character composition. It has changed from being composition to description over its three year development.
SAT Feedback to "Preliminary proposal to add a new provisional kIDS property (Unihan)" (IRGN2492) and "Proposal to encode five new Ideographic Description Characters" (IRGN2572), 2022-08-29
Unified
Unified
Unified
Unified
Unified
Unified
Unified
Unified
Unified
Unified
Not unified
Not unified
Not unified
Not unified
Not unified
Not unified
Not unified
12 are unified
Not unified
Not unified
Not unified
Han
Han
Han
Han
Han
Han
Han
Han
Han
Han
Han
Han Common
Han, Hangul, Common, Inherited
Common
Hangul, Katakana, Common
Katakana, Common
Han
Common Hiragana, Common
Han