What ⼄ means
⼄ is the index sign for radical 5, a lookup category in Chinese dictionaries.
The Shuowen Jiezi, a Chinese dictionary compiled around 100 CE, explains the curved form 乙 as a plant bending as it sprouts.
Why does a dictionary put characters under ⼄?
A radical gives a reader a route through a dictionary, not a full definition.
Mei Yingzuo’s Zihui introduced the 214-radical arrangement in 1615; the Kangxi Dictionary adopted it in the early eighteenth century. A reader finds the radical, then checks the remaining strokes to narrow the search. A dictionary can assign a character by convention even if it does not visibly contain the radical: 也 is filed under 乙. So ⼄ tells you where to search, not what every entry means.
How is ⼄ different from 乙?
⼄ is the radical label; 乙 is the ordinary ideograph.
Unicode treats them as separate characters with different roles, even though ⼄ is an approximate equivalent of 乙. The ordinary 乙 can name the second heavenly stem, mark second place, or stand for an unnamed person or place; ⼄ labels the index entry.
Technical and reference-oriented: it names an indexing category rather than carrying an ordinary sentence meaning.
Use 乙 for the ordinary character; ⼄ is the indexing symbol.
Part of the collection
Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
1
Questions people ask
1Why is 也 filed under 乙?
Because radical indexes are filing conventions: a character need not visibly contain the radical shape. 也 is one such entry under 乙.
More like this
11
How to type or find ⼄
- Also called
- radical 5 · 乙部 · 乙 radical
- Search it as
- u+2f04 · 2f04 · 乙 · yǐ · yi · 乚 · Chinese radical · radical index
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
⼄\2F04Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.