覿

The primary sense is a visual encounter or the act of coming face-to-face. This includes:

• General encounters: To meet, come upon, or behold (often something unexpected or significant).
• Formal audiences: In hierarchical contexts, being granted access to a superior or admitted to an audience.

Almost exclusively a transitive verb. It typically takes a person, deity, or specific entity as its object; it is rarely used for inanimate landscapes unless the landscape is being "encountered" in a meaningful way.

• vs. 見 (jiàn): While 見 is the general verb for seeing, 覿 emphasizes the event of the meeting.
• vs. 睹 (dǔ): While often interchangeable in later texts, 睹 tends toward witnessing or the visual registration of an image, whereas 覿 leans toward a social or physical encounter between two parties.

The glyph 睹 (U+89CC) is listed as a simplified variant. In early texts, the choice of 覿 over 睹 often signals an intentional emphasis on formality or the specific moment of meeting rather than the act of seeing.