CJK Radical Head

⻡ is the head-radical form used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean dictionary notation; 首 is the ordinary written character for “head.” Use ⻡ for the radical, 首 in ordinary text.

Text symbol

What ⻡ means

It marks the head radical in dictionary lookup. Radicals group characters by recurring components; radical-and-stroke lookup finds one, then counts the remaining strokes. ⻡ is notation, not a word.

首 began as a head pictograph; it also means “first,” “chief,” and “beginning.” Early forms appear in Shang inscriptions on bones used for divination, Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, and Han-era forms. The early Chinese dictionary Shuowen Jiezi grouped characters under recurring components. The eighteenth-century Kangxi Dictionary helped establish radical-and-stroke lookup in later Chinese, Japanese, and Korean references.

The reference glyph is illustrative; typefaces may draw radical forms differently.

Part of the collection

⼈

Chinese Radicals & Strokes

Don't confuse it with

⾸

Kangxi Radical Head

The canonical Kangxi head-radical form; ⻡ is a separate supplementary character.

首

CJK Unified Ideograph-9996

⻡ vs 首: ⻡ is notation; 首 is the ordinary ideograph for head, first, or chief.

Questions people ask

Why does ⻡ show as a box on some devices?

Not every system ships a font for the CJK Radicals Supplement block. Where none is installed, the character shows as an empty box; adding a font such as Noto fixes it. The character itself is still correct and copies correctly.