Radical 87 or radical claw () meaning "

claw A claw is a curved, pointed appendage found at the end of a toe or finger in most amniotes (mammals, reptiles, birds). Some invertebrates such as beetles and spiders have somewhat similar fine, hooked structures at the end of the leg or tarsus ...

", "

nail Nail or Nails may refer to: In biology * Nail (anatomy), toughened protective protein-keratin (known as alpha-keratin, also found in hair) at the end of an animal digit, such as fingernail * Nail (beak), a plate of hard horny tissue at the tip ...

" or " talon" is one of the 34 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals total) composed of 4

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 ...

. 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 ...

'' there are 36 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. is also the 86th 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. ...

, with being its associated indexing component.

Evolution

File:爪-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:爪-bronze.svg, Bronze script character File:爪-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:爪-seal.svg, Small seal script character

Derived characters

Variant forms

There is a design nuance between the form of in different typefaces. In mainland China standard, the starting point of the third and fourth strokes of are joined with the first stroke, while in Taiwan's

Standard Form of National Characters The ''Standard Form of National Characters'' or the ''Standard Typefaces for Chinese Characters'' () is the Standard language, standardized form of Chinese characters set by the Ministry of Education (Republic of China), Ministry of Education of th ...

, they are detached. This difference may apply to both printing typefaces and handwriting forms, and usually both are acceptable. The upper component form also has variant forms in different regions. Traditionally, the second and fourth strokes point outwards in printing typefaces () but point inwards in handwriting (). In mainland China's '' xinzixing'' (new typeface), some were replaced by (a variant form of the radical 刀), e.g. -> , while the others were altered their form to imitate the handwriting form , e.g. -> ; These changes also apply to traditional Chinese characters, e.g. -> , -> . Similar change were also adopted in Japanese '' jōyō kanji'' (commonly used Chinese characters), e.g. -> , while the forms of ''

kyūjitai ''Kyūjitai'' ( ja, 舊字體 / 旧字体, lit=old character forms) are the traditional forms of kanji, Chinese written characters used in Japanese. Their simplified counterparts are ''shinjitai'' ( ja, 新字体, lit=new character forms, lab ...

'' and ''

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 ...

'' were left unchanged, e.g. (=), . In

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

and

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...

where Traditional Chinese is used, is adopted as the standard form, though both forms are commonly used in publication.

Literature

* *

External links

Unihan Database - U+722A
{{Simplified Chinese radicals 087 086