Radical 51 or radical dry () meaning "" or "" is one of 31 out of the total 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 written with three

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 ...

. There are only nine characters derived from this radical, and some modern dictionaries have discontinued its use as a section header. In such characters that comprise 干 as a component, it mostly takes a purely phonetic role, as in "liver" (which falls under

radical 130 Radical 130 or radical meat () meaning "meat" is one of the 29 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 6 strokes. When used as a left component, the radical character transforms into in Simplified Chinese and Japanese or in modern T ...

肉 "meat"). is also the 27st 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. ...

Evolution

File:干-oracle.svg,

Oracle bone script Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or Turtle shell#Plastron, turtle plastrons used in pyromancy, pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millen ...

character File:干-bronze.svg,

Bronze script Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as ''zhōng'' bells and '' dǐng'' tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd mi ...

character File:干-bigseal.svg,

Large Seal Script The large seal script or great seal script () is a traditional reference to Chinese writing from before the Qin dynasty (i.e. before 221 BCE), and is now popularly understood to refer narrowly to the writing of the Western and early Eastern Zhou ...

character File:干-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 In origin, the character may depict either a

pestle Mortar and pestle is a set of two simple tools used from the Stone Age to the present day to prepare ingredients or substances by crushing and grinding them into a fine paste or powder in the kitchen, laboratory, and pharmacy. The ''mortar'' () ...

or a

shield A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry or projectiles such as arrows, by means of a ...

. It can be traced to the

seal script Seal script, also sigillary script () is an ancient style of writing Chinese characters that was common throughout the latter half of the 1st millennium BC. It evolved organically out of the Zhou dynasty bronze script. The Qin variant of seal ...

Derived characters

In simplified Chinese

As a character (not a radical), has risen to new importance, and even notoriety due to the 20th-century Chinese writing reform. In

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, ...

, takes the place of a number of other characters with the phonetic value ' or ', e.g. of "dry" or "trunk, body", so that may today take a wide variety of meanings. The high frequency and polysemy of the character poses a serious problem for Chinese

translation software Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT (not to be confused with computer-aided translation, machine-aided human translation or interactive translation), is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates th ...

. The word ' "tree trunk; to do" (rarely also "human body"), rendered as in simplified Chinese, acquired the meaning of "to

fuck ''Fuck'' is an English-language expletive. It often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested to aro ...

" in Chinese slang. Notoriously, the 2002 edition of the widespread Jinshan Ciba Chinese-to-English dictionary for the Jinshan Kuaiyi translation software rendered every occurrence of as "fuck", resulting in a large number of signs with irritating English translations throughout China, often mistranslating ' "dried" as in "dried fruit" in supermarkets as "fuck the fruits" or similar.Victor Mair
The Etiology and Elaboration of a Flagrant Mistranslation
Language Log, December 2007.

Literature

* *Leyi Li: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, *Rick Harbaugh, ''Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary'', Yale University Press (1998),

References

External links