亻

dānrénpáng

radical variant #78,329

Meanings

1 side person radical (variant of 人)
2 left form of the person radical, Kangxi #9

Tips

usage

Spotting 亻 on the left of a character is one of the fastest semantic shortcuts in Chinese - it almost always flags a word about people, social roles, or human action. Compresses 人 into a narrow vertical so a second component can share the square. Never written alone; the standalone form is 人.

history

亻 is the calligraphic squeeze of the standalone pictograph 人 (a side-on figure with two legs). When 人 sits on the left of a compound, the legs straighten and the figure narrows to a vertical column, freeing the right half for the phonetic or second semantic part.

usage

Strong people-cue: 你 (you), 他 (he), 们 (plural marker), 住 (live/reside), 作 (do/make), 但 (but), 信 (trust/letter), 体 (body).

Radical

Person Kangxi #9

One of the most productive radicals in the language. Marks characters about people, social roles, and human action - 你, 他, 们, 来, 仁, 休, 信. The compressed left-side form 亻 dominates in compounds; the standalone 人 keeps its full pictographic stride.

Forms

人 rén

Default 24 characters

亻 dānrénpáng

Left 208 characters

𠆢 rén

Top 0 characters

Used in

View all 208 →

Showing 6 of 208 · left form 亻 of 人

你 nǐ

you (singular, informal)

他 tā

he · him

做 zuò

to do · to make

但 dàn

but · yet

像 xiàng

to resemble · to be like

们 men

plural marker for pronouns and some nouns referring to people

Stroke Order