| Blockname: | Ideographic Description Characters |
| Rangestart: | 2FF0 |
| Rangeend: | 2FFF |
| Script1: | Common |
| 3 0: | 12 |
| 15 1: | 4 |
| Sources: | GBK (U+2FF0–U+2FFB only) |
| Note: | [1] [2] |
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 | ⿰丨㇍ | ||
| U+2FF1 | ⿱ | Two components combined above to below | 杏 | ⿱木口 | ⿱丶 | ||
| U+2FF2 | ⿲ | Three components combined left to middle and right | 衍 | ⿲彳氵亍 | ⿲丿夕乚 | ||
| U+2FF3 | ⿳ | Three components combined above to middle and below | 京 | ⿳亠口小 | ⿳亼目口 | ||
| U+2FF4 | ⿴ | One component fully wrapping another component | 回 | ⿴囗口 | ⿴㐁人 | ||
| U+2FF5 | ⿵ | One component surround three sides of another component (opening at bottom) | 凰 | ⿵几皇 | ⿵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 | ⿷虎九 | ||
| U+2FF8 | ⿸ | One component surround top and left side of another component | 病 | ⿸疒丙 | ⿸耂火 | ||
| U+2FF9 | ⿹ | One component surround top and right side of another component | 戒 | ⿹戈廾 | ⿹或壬 | ||
| U+2FFA | ⿺ | One component surround bottom and left side of another component | 超 | ⿺走召 | ⿺礼分 | ||
| U+2FFB | ⿻ | Two components overlapped | 巫 | ⿻工从 | ⿻木⿻コ一 | ||
| U+2FFC | ⿼ | One component surround three sides of another component (opening at left) | 㕚 | ⿼叉丶 | ⿼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 | ⿾正 | ||
| U+2FFF | ⿿ | Rotation | ⿿凹 | ⿿予 |
Two other related ideographic description characters are not encoded in this Unicode block, but of which may be used in ideographic description sequences:
| Unicode | Char | Block | Meaning | Example 1 | IDS | Example 2 | IDS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U+303E | 〾 | Variant but not equivalent | 㬵 (U+3B35) | 〾胶 (U+80F6)[4] | 〾爫[5] | |||
| U+31EF | ㇯ | Subtraction | 乒 | ㇯兵丶 | ㇯豕一 |
This is the syntax of IDS in EBNF:
The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Ideographic Description Characters block:
| Count | UTC ID | L2 ID | WG2 ID | IRG ID | Document | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.0 | U+2FF0..2FFB | 12 | N1284 | |||||
| doc) | ||||||||
| N1348 | ||||||||
| N1357 | ||||||||
| N1353 | ||||||||
| N1494 | ||||||||
| N1430 | N365 | |||||||
| N1453 | ||||||||
| N1486 | N437 | |||||||
| N1489 | ||||||||
| N1490 | N436 | |||||||
| doc) | ||||||||
| doc) | N453 | |||||||
| N1680 | ||||||||
| N1782 | ||||||||
| N1842 | ||||||||
| N1703 | ||||||||
| doc) | ||||||||
| html, doc) | ||||||||
| N1971 | ||||||||
| doc) | ||||||||
| N2023 | ||||||||
| N2003 | ||||||||
| N2067 | ||||||||
| N2123 | ||||||||
| N2124 | ||||||||
| N2103 | ||||||||
| N2480 | ||||||||
| N2534 | N955 | |||||||
| 15.1 | U+2FFC..2FFF | 4 | N2273 | |||||
| N2492 | ||||||||
| N2572 | ||||||||