Kangxi may refer to:
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A Chinese radical is a graphical component of a Chinese character under which the character is traditionally listed in a Chinese dictionary. This component is often a semantic indicator similar to a morpheme, though in some cases the original semantic connection has become obscure, owing to changes in character meaning over time. In other cases, the radical may be a phonetic component or even an artificially extracted portion of the character.
The Kangxi Dictionary was the standard Chinese dictionary during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Kangxi Emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty ordered its compilation in 1710. It used the earlier Zihui system of 214 radicals, today known as 214 Kangxi radicals, and was published in 1716. The dictionary is named after the Emperor's era name.
The 214 Kangxi radicals, also known as the Zihui radicals, form a system of radicals (部首) of Chinese characters. The radicals are numbered in stroke count order. They are the most popular system of radicals for dictionaries that order Traditional Chinese characters by radical and stroke count. They are officially part of the Unicode encoding system for CJKV characters, in their standard order, under the coding block "Kangxi radicals", while their graphic variants are contained in the "CJK Radicals Supplement". Thus, a reference to "radical 61", for example, without additional context, refers to the 61st radical of the Kangxi Dictionary, 心; xīn "heart".
Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Han Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for the Chinese language, and this article discusses some of the most important.
The 1615 Zìhuì is a Chinese dictionary edited by the Ming Dynasty scholar Mei Yingzuo (梅膺祚). It is renowned for introducing two lexicographical innovations that continue to be used in the present day: the 214-radical system for indexing Chinese characters, which replaced the classic Shuowen Jiezi dictionary's 540-radical system, and the radical-and-stroke sorting method.
Radical 213 meaning "turtle" is one of only two of the 214 Kangxi radicals that are composed of 16 strokes.
Radical 8, whose meaning as an independent word is unknown, but is often interpreted to be a "lid" when used as a radical, is radical 23 of the 214 Kangxi radicals and consists of two strokes.
Radical 44 meaning "corpse" is 1 of 31 Kangxi radicals composed of three strokes.
Radical 47 meaning "river" is 1 of 31 Kangxi radicals composed of three strokes.
Radical 205 meaning "frog" or "amphibian" is 1 of 4 Kangxi radicals composed of 13 strokes.
Radical 130 meaning "meat" is 1 of 29 Kangxi radicals composed of 6 strokes.
Radical 142 meaning "insect" or "worm" is 1 of 29 Kangxi radicals composed of 6 strokes.
Radical 145 meaning "clothes" is 1 of 29 Kangxi radicals composed of 6 strokes.
Radical 158 meaning "body" is 1 of 20 Kangxi radicals composed of 7 strokes.
Radical 167 meaning "gold" or "metal" is 1 of 9 Kangxi radicals composed of 8 strokes. It also represents the Chinese family name, Jin, which is No. 29[1] of the Hundred Family Surnames.
Radical 172 meaning "small bird" or "short-tailed bird" is 1 of 9 Kangxi radicals composed of 8 strokes.
Radical 184 meaning "eat" or "food" is 1 of 11 Kangxi radicals composed of 9 strokes.
Radical 195 meaning "fish" is 1 of 6 Kangxi radicals composed of 11 strokes.
Zhonghua Zihai is the largest Chinese character dictionary available for print, compiled in 1994 and consisting of 85,568 different characters.