Chinese turning-hook stroke

乛 is a one-stroke form in Chinese writing. In a Chinese stroke chart or stroke input, it labels 折钩, a turn followed by a hook. As of 2026, it has no settled chat meaning on its own, so a bare message is best read as a stroke label or text fragment.

Early forms of 乙 appear on oracle bones (inscribed animal bones or tortoise shells) and bronze inscriptions. 乙 was the second of the ten Heavenly Stems, a traditional sequence used to label days and years, and later also meant “second.” Scholars disagree about its original picture: one reading sees a bent stream of water; the Han-era Chinese dictionary Shuowen Jiezi describes a bent sprout.

The 乙 family changes shape by position inside characters such as 乞, 乾, 亂, 札, and 軋. In Japanese, 乙 also names a lower musical register and can prefix words with a young or cute nuance. A Unicode reading entry links 乛 to Korean 구결 (kwukyel), a tradition of annotating Classical Chinese texts for Korean readers.

How do I type 乛 with stroke input?

Use Apple’s Traditional Chinese Stroke input. As of 2026, Apple maps 折钩, the fifth stroke category, to 5 on the numeric keypad or I on the keyboard. The key selects a stroke category; choose 乛 only if it appears among the candidates.

Why can 乛 look different across fonts?

A font can change the curve without changing the character. Unicode identifies a code point, while the font draws its glyph. Unicode’s chart of CJK radical forms, components used to organize characters, links ⺂ to 乛, ⺃ to 乚, and ⺄ to 乙. These related forms have distinct code points and are not interchangeable.