Second Radical (乚) — Characters, Meaning and Practice Worksheet
乚 is the second radical. It appears in 18 of the most common Chinese characters — these 12 are the ones worth learning first, and the worksheet below gives every one of them a pinyin header, a stroke-by-stroke model and blank Tianzige grids to copy into.
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What does 乚 mean?
Second radical · 乙 yǐ · 1 strokes · second (of the heavenly stems); a swallow in flight
It usually appears as a hook at the bottom or on the right. The Origin column below shows what each character's parts do — many take their meaning from the radical, some take their sound from the other half.
乙 itself: A swallow
12 common characters with 乚
Ranked by how often they appear in real written Chinese. Every character links to its own page with a stroke-order animation and example words.
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 也 | yě | also | |
| 儿 | ér | [nonsyllabic suffix for retroflection, especially in the Beijing dialect] | Simplified form of 兒, a picture of a child; compare 人 |
| 己 | jǐ | self | A loom woven with thread |
| 电 | diàn | electricity, power; telegram, cable | Simplified form of 電; lightning 申 from a storm cloud 雨 |
| 几 | jǐ | several; how much | A small table; compare 丌 |
| 艺 | yì | skill; art | 乙 supplies the sound |
| 七 | qī | seven | |
| 乱 | luàn | at random, arbitrarily, disorderly | |
| 礼 | lǐ | gift; courtesy; ceremony | 乚 supplies the sound |
| 九 | jiǔ | nine | An elbow |
| 忆 | yì | to recollect; to remember; memory | 乙 supplies the sound |
| 扎 | zhā | tie or bind (with a string or ribbon); prick; plunge into | A hand 扌 tying a bundle with string 乚 |
Related Radicals
- 丨Line radical · gǔn17 common characters · a vertical line
- 丶Dot radical · zhǔ22 common characters · a single dot
- 丿Slash radical · piě24 common characters · a downward-left slash
- 二Two radical · èr17 common characters · two; a pair of horizontal lines
- 亠Lid radical26 common characters · the dot-and-line “lid” on top of a character
- 亻Person radical · rén115 common characters · person; people
Create Your Own Chinese Worksheet
The download above is fixed; the generator is not. Turn any character list, sentence or textbook section into a printable worksheet — grid style, paper size and header are yours to pick.