乞 is a bound form rarely used alone in modern Chinese. It appears in compounds: 乞讨 (to beg), 乞求 (to implore), 乞丐 (beggar), 乞巧 (the Qixi tradition of praying for skill).
The bottom curved 乙 hook is the indexing Kangxi radical for 乞. It groups the graph with other 乙-radical entries (九, 也, 乱) and serves as the visual base on which the upper breath-strokes rest, completing the begging-figure silhouette.
pictograph
乞qǐ
beg; request
Originally a variant of 气 (vapor, breath) - the two upper strokes depict rising mist. The graph was later borrowed for 'beg, ask for' (a person breathing out a plea), with the lower 乙 added as a phonetic-radical anchor for the new meaning.
