Radical 140 or radical grass () meaning "grass" is one of 29 of the 214

Kangxi radical The 214 Kangxi radicals (), also known as the Zihui radicals, form a system of radicals () of Chinese characters. The radicals are numbered in stroke count order. They are the most popular system of radicals for dictionaries that order Traditi ...

s that are composed of 6

strokes A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop funct ...

. It transforms into when appearing at the top of a character or component. In the ''

Kangxi Dictionary The ''Kangxi Dictionary'' ( (Compendium of standard characters from the Kangxi period), published in 1716, was the most authoritative dictionary of Chinese characters from the 18th century through the early 20th. The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing d ...

'' and in modern standard Traditional Chinese as used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, (with two horizontal strokes) consists of four strokes, while in Simplified Chinese and modern Japanese, (with a continuous horizontal stroke) consists of three strokes. In the ''

'' there are 1902 characters (out of 40,000) found under this

radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...

, making it the most commonly used radical. , the upper component form of , is the 30th indexing component in the ''

Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components ''The Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components'' () is a lexicographic tool used to order the Chinese characters in mainland China. The specification is also known as GF 0011-2009. In China's normative documents, "radical" is defined as any ...

'' predominantly adopted by

Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions, ...

dictionaries published in

mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...

, while is listed as its associated indexing component.

Evolution

File:艸-seal.svg,

Small seal script The small seal script (), or Qin script (, ''Qínzhuàn''), is an archaic form of Chinese calligraphy. It was standardized and promulgated as a national standard by the government of Qin Shi Huang, the founder of the Chinese Qin dynasty. Name ...

character

Derived characters

Variant forms

This radical character is written differently in different languages. Traditionally, breaking the horizontal stroke in 艹 is optional in both printing and written forms. The ''

'' adopted the four-stroke form . In today's Simplified Chinese, only the three-stroke form is used; The four-stroke form is treated as an obsolete typeface form after the adoption of ''

xin zixing The xin zixing () is a standardized form of Chinese character set in mainland China based on the 1964 "List of character forms of Common Chinese characters for Publishing" () as compared to ''jiu zixing'' (). The standard is based on regular script ...

''. In modern Traditional Chinese as used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, the four-stroke form is standard, while the three-stroke form is still overwhelmingly preferred in publications. In Japanese, only the three-stroke form is used for ''

jōyō kanji The is the guide to kanji characters and their readings, announced officially by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Current ''jōyō kanji'' are those on a list of 2,136 characters issued in 2010. It is a slightly modified version of the ''tō ...

'' (commonly used Chinese characters); the three-stroke form is recommended for ''

hyōgai kanji , also known as , is a term for Japanese kanji outside the two major lists of jōyō kanji, which are taught in primary and secondary school, and the jinmeiyō kanji, which are additional kanji that are officially allowed for use in personal nam ...

'', while the four-stroke form is listed as an acceptable "design difference" in ''Hyōgai Kanji Jitaihyō'' () and

JIS X 0208 JIS X 0208 is a 2-byte character set specified as a Japanese Industrial Standards, Japanese Industrial Standard, containing 6879 graphic characters suitable for writing text, place names, personal names, and so forth in the Japanese language. Th ...

. In addition, is derived from the

cursive Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionalit ...

form of 艹. 艹-torder.gif, Standard stroke order in Taiwan Chinese 艹-order.gif, Stroke order in Simplified Chinese and Japanese

References

* KangXi:
page 1017
character 1 * Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 30638 * Dae Jaweon: page 1475, character 6 * Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 5, page 3172, character 1
Unihan data for U+8278
{{Simplified Chinese radicals

140 140 may refer to: * 140 (number), an integer * AD 140, a year of the Julian calendar * 140 BC, a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar * ''140'' (video game), a 2013 platform game * Tin King stop Tin King () is an at-grade MTR Light Rail stop ...

030