The story of “hand” (‘手’) in Chinese writing
Last updated: 12 Feb 2021
This article is part of a compendium of 3500 characters.
(This article has been converted into a course at this Facebook group.)
Please ensure you know these foundational concepts before reading this article:
- Radicals: indexing radicals, abbreviated radicals, improvised radicals
- Writing strokes: our 7 Stroke Types nomenclature
(“right down throw press dot rise hook”) - Character construction principles: pictorial, semantic, phonetic, and combinations thereof.
Keep these 2 reference sources at hand when you read this article:
- 汉字部首表 (Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components)
(We will refer to this as “Table of Radicals”.) - 通用规范汉字表 (Table of General Standard Chinese Characters)
(We will refer to this as “Table of Characters”.)
The concept of “hand” (‘手’) is used a lot in the character construction of many Chinese characters.
Learning all the different forms of “hand” (‘手’) will help us greatly in analyzing a multitude of characters constructed from the concept of “hand”. Ancient Chinese used their hands in everyday life just as much as we do today.
We start with the easy and obvious parts of the story.
The character construction for “hand” (‘手’) is straightforward and plainly pictorial for ‘手’, ‘龵’ and ‘扌’.
Character 121, ‘手’
The character construction for ‘手’ is pictorial: the shape of a palm, connected to the arm.
The strokes for the character are: “throw right right throw-hook”.
Abbreviated Radical 80.a, ‘龵’
How ‘手’ gets abbreviated to ‘龵’ (“throw right right throw”) is obvious enough. Let’s look at an example of one of its use in character construction.
The character ‘看’ (character 1539) consists of abbreviated radical ‘龵’ (radical 80.a) and indexing radical ‘目’ (radical 105). The story: placing your “hand” (‘龵’) over your “eye” (‘目’), you “see” (‘看’). (Presumably, you see something in the distance.
Abbreviated Radical 29.b, ‘扌’
Radical ‘扌’ is very abbreviated from ‘手’, but the shape is still recognizable. Note the horizontal strokes hanging on the “down-hook” which largely resembles the “press-hook” in ‘手’.
This radical always appears on the left, and always semantically contribute to character construction as “hand” or “action”. Numerous examples abound: ‘打’ (“to beat”), ‘扔’ (“to discard”), ‘扣’ (“to rein”).
On a divergent evolutionary path, the story of “hand” (‘手’) gives rise to less obvious abbreviations such as ‘又’ and ‘𠂇’.
Indexing Radical 24, ‘又’
The story of “hand” (‘手’) starts, as you may expect for 2-handed humans, with the characters ‘左’ (“left”) and ‘右’ (“right”) in ancient form:
How did those ancient forms, so clear and legible, somehow morph into a single ‘又’?
(In case the stick figures aren’t readily apparent in representing hands, consider the boxes below them as the mouth into which hands put food.)
Perhaps because our Chinese ancestors had stronger right hands, the ancient form for ‘右’ (“right”) looks a lot more defined than that for ‘左’ (“left”). And that is where the first step of this story takes place.
Over time, the well-defined ancient form that stands for ‘右’ (“right”) was further refined into ‘又’, which in those times stood for “right”. Note how all transformations aim to fit a consistent square space, that taken up by each character.
The mouth figures were probably dropped because, well, the character was trying to describe “the right hand”, which is quite separate a concept from “mouth”.
Incidentally, the pronunciation for ‘右’ today (“right”, you4) is still the same as that for ‘又’ (you4), so it seems that the sound ‘you4’ has always stood for “right”.
The next step of the story stems from the obvious symmetry of that refined form.
The obvious symmetry of ‘又’ is the probable cause for its semantic drift. Thus, character ‘又’ (character 21) came to stand for “hand”.
The semantics of “hand” for ‘又’ will come in handy when we explore the character construction for ‘友’ (“friend”, character 97) soon.
While ‘又’ stands for “hand” today (when used as a radical), it doesn’t stand for either “left” or “right”. To understand how ‘左’ (“left”) and ‘右’ (“right”) are constructed, we need to look at the abbreviation of ‘又’.
Improvised Radical ‘𠂇’
We’ve seen how the original forms of ‘左’ (“left”) and ‘右’ (“right”) simplify into ‘又’. It’s now time to see how ‘𠂇’ also stands for “hand”, just like ‘又’ does.
The improvised radical ‘𠂇’ is an abbreviation of ‘又’ (radical meaning “hand”). As with all abbreviations, the original form is packed tightly to a side, in this case upper-left.
The story for ‘右’ (“right”, character 217): the hand (semantically ‘𠂇’) that holds a tool (pictorially ‘口’).
The story for ‘左’ (“left”, character 214): the hand (semantically ‘𠂇’) that aids the work (‘工’, “work”, character 26) of the right hand.
And now, we’re able to easily construct the character ‘友’ (“friend”, character 97).
Hand (‘𠂇’) in hand (‘又’), a friendship (‘友’, “friend”) is forged.
The story for the abbreviation of the ancient form to ‘又’ and ‘𠂇’ ends here. But another story develops in parallel.
Back to basics. The ancient form of “hand” gives rise, via another evolutionary path, to radicals such as ‘彐’, ‘寸’ and ‘爫’. This path shows a more literal form than for ‘又’ and ‘𠂇’.
Indexing radical 50, ‘彐’
This is an abbreviation of the original stick figure form, with the connection to wrist and arm removed.
The only example I can find so far is the character ‘糠’ (“chaff or bran”, character 3429). (It seems our Chinese ancestors were picky eaters just like we are today; bran is supposed to be edible and nutritious.)
The character is composed of 3 radicals:
- ‘米’ (semantically “rice grain”, radical 144)
- ‘广’ (pictorially “roof”, radical 46)
- ‘隶’ (pictorially “hand with tool threshing grains”, radical 178)
It’s obvious enough how ‘米’ and ‘广’ semantically and pictorially construct the character. Let’s focus on ‘隶’ to see ‘彐’ in action.
The radical ‘隶’ depicts a hand (‘彐’) holding a tool (‘亅’) threshing grains (“dot rise throw press”).
(TODO: Cover a closely related example ‘康’? Or fit that under ‘广’?)
(TODO: Cover possibly false etymologies? ‘急’, ‘当’)
Note that while ‘肀’ (radical 98.a) looks very much like the ancient form for “hand”, it actually stands for “pen” (might also have been constructed pictorially via “a hand”, ‘彐’, “holding a pen”, ‘丨’).
The story then takes a short step backward, restoring the link to wrist and arm. The detailed form was required for medical practice at the time (Traditional Chinese Medicine today).
Improvised Radical ‘寸’
So now we’re back to the ancient form for “hand” (specifically the right hand, but we’re past bothering with “left” and “right” since we already have characters ‘左’ and ‘右’).
The “dot” (highlighted blue) indicates a point just below the wrist of a hand.
In medical practice of the time (Traditional Chinese Medicine today), that point is about one inch below the wrist. And that there is also our official etymology for the character ‘寸’ (“inch”, character 31).
The character ‘寻’ (“search”, character 563) can have this story: hand ‘彐’ scrambling over hand ‘寸’, we search. (This character has no official etymology, given that its current form didn’t exist when official etymologies where created.)
Abbreviated Radical 87.b, ‘爫’
This form is similar to ‘彐’ except it is rotated.
The radical ‘爫’ (rotated form of ‘彐’) is written as “throw dot dot throw”, as seen in ‘采’ (“to pluck”, character 1172). The story: hand (‘爫’) plucks fruit from plant (‘木’, “wood”, character 87).
Indexing Radical 32, ‘廾’
In the character ‘弄’ (“to fool around, disparage”, character 600), we see two hands ‘廾’ (“to present with both hands”, radical 32).
While the original meaning of ‘弄’ was “to play with jade” (see article on kings and jades in Chinese writing to see why radical ‘王’ means “jade”), the character has come to mean “to disparage or carelessly dabble”. Apparently, raising an exquisite piece of jade with both hands to gaze at it was considered a form of play! (My computer games cost merely $20 each!)
The radical ‘廾’ is a super abbreviated form of two hands, left and right, as seen in characters such as ‘弄’ and ‘弃’.
Another character that features ‘廾’ is the character ‘弃’, but that requires a study of an old character ‘𠫓’ , so we’ll examine ‘弃’ in a separate article.
Now that we have covered all forms of “hand”, we look at radicals that feature “the use of hand”, where the radical contains both “hand” and “object (being handled)”.
Some radicals involving “hand” features “hand” handling an “object”, usually a “stick”.
Indexing Radical 74, ‘攴’
The radical ‘攴’ (pu1, radical 74) provides semantic construction that means “to tap”. The reason we’re discussing this radical here is because its subsequent evolution came to pictorially represent “hand holding a stick”.
Radical ‘攴’ (radical 74) is the precursor of radical ‘攵’ (radical 82.b) which pictorially means “hand holding a stick”.
Recall from earlier in this article that ‘又’ (you4, radical 24) has come to mean “hand”. The additional two strokes “down right” on top in radical ‘攴’ (pu1, radical 74) would later evolve to pictorially represent a “stick”.
From “divination”, which involved “sticks”
To get a preview into why this radical ‘攴’ (pu1, radical 74) would later evolve into a form that means “hand holding a stick”, we need to look at the character construction of this radical. This radical used to be a character too, an old form for character ‘扑’ (“to tap”, pu1, character 199).
The story of ‘攴’ (pu1, radical 74) starts with radical ‘卜’ (“to divine”, bu3, radical 9, character 8), whose abbreviated radical (radical 8.a) looks identical to the adornment on top of ‘又’ (you4, radical 24) in ‘攴’ (pu1, radical 74).
In the character construction of ‘卜’ (“to divine”, bu3), we take the “down” stroke to pictorially represent a physical “stick” and the “right” stroke a “finger”. It then appears that ancient Chinese pointed to crack lines on bones as divine answers to questions they posed. (Technically, the vertical stroke denotes the divination marks for Heavenly Stems, and the horizontal for Earthly Branches, but that explanation requires a deep dive into mythical concepts.)
The story then comes to a close in the character construction of radical ‘攴’ (pu1, radical 74), which is an old character form for ‘扑’ (“to tap”, pu1, character 199). As we already know from earlier, the radicals ‘扌’ (shou3, radical 29.b) and ‘又’ (you4, radical 24) provide semantic construction to mean “action” (or “hand” in some cases). The radical ‘卜’ (“to divine”, bu3, radical 9) provides phonetic construction in radical ‘攴’ (“to tap”, pu1, radical 74).
The 2 strokes atop ‘又’ in radical ‘攴’ contributes phonetic construction, though it would later evolve to pictorially mean “a stick”.
As it turns out, there didn’t seem to be much need for the semantics of “to tap” in character construction. Even characters like ‘攻’ (“to attack”, gong1, character 630) that was written with radical ‘攴’ (pu1, radical 74) evolved to use the semantics of “hand holding a stick”.
About the only character that still uses radical ‘攴’ (pu1, radical 74) is ‘敲’ (“to knock”, qiao1, character 3140).
We will next look at the abbreviated radical ‘攵’ (“to tap”, pu1, radical 82.b) that is pictorially closer to meaning “hand holding a stick”.
Abbreviated Radical 82.b, ‘攵’
In radical ‘攴’ (pu1, radical 74), the abbreviation of radical 8.a — radical form of character ‘卜’ (“to divine”, bu3, character 8) — into a single “throw” stroke results in radical ‘攵’ (“to tap”, pu1, radical 82.b).
At this point, the single “throw” stroke is pictorially closer to representing “stick”, and the radical ‘攵’ (pu1, radical 82.b) consequently becomes pictorially closer to representing “hand holding a stick”.
Many characters feature this semantics of “hand holding a stick”, including ‘牧’ (“to shepherd”, mu4, character 1126) and ‘救’ (“to save”, jiu4, character 2232).
Apparently, ancient Chinese used “stick in hand” (‘攵’, pu1, radical 82.b) to shephered “cattle” (‘牜’, niu2, radical 82.a), perhaps similar to the use of shepherd’s crook.
“Saving” may have involved “stick in hand” too, a method that seems effective and still in use today.
The improvised radical ‘求’ (“to beg”, qiu2, character 690) provides phonetic construction in ‘救’ (“to save”, jiu4, character 2232).
Now that we’ve explored all forms of ‘手’ (“hand”, character 121), we should be ready to take on any character construction that involves the concept of “hand”.
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