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艸

cǎo
kangxi radical

Meanings

  1. 1 grass radical (Kangxi #140)
  2. 2 archaic form of 草 (grass), preserved as the canonical Kangxi entry

Tips

usage
艸 is the archaic full form behind the everyday top radical 艹 ('grass top', 草字头). You will essentially never see 艸 written out - handwriting and printing collapse it to 艹, which sits atop 花 (flower), 草 (grass), 茶 (tea), 菜 (vegetable), 苦 (bitter), 药 (medicine) and hundreds of plant words.
history
The character 草 itself was a phono-semantic compound built on 艸 + 早 (zǎo), which eventually replaced 艸 in everyday writing.

Radical

Grass Kangxi #140

The grass radical. Archaic full form behind the modern top variant 艹. Among the most productive radicals in the language, indexing nearly all plant, herb, flower, vegetable, and herbal-medicine vocabulary: 花, 草, 茶, 菜, 苦, 药, 茄, 苹, 萝, 蔬, 蓝, 蕉. In practice you read it as the four-stroke 艹 cap, never as 艸.

Forms
艸 cǎo
Default 0 characters
艹 cǎo
Top 278 characters

Stroke Order

艸 cǎo