Radicals are the shared building blocks of every hanzi. Search by pinyin or meaning, sort by strokes, and filter to the ones you need — all 214 Kangxi radicals with real example characters.
Download the 214-radical PDF Free printable cheat sheet — pinyin, meaning & example characters.
What is a radical?
A radical (部首 bùshǒu) is a shared building block found inside a Chinese character. Most radicals give a hint about the character’s meaning, and every dictionary uses them to index hanzi. Learn the common ones and you can guess and look up thousands of characters.
The radical often signals the topic. 氵 means water, so it hides inside:
河 river · 海 sea · 洗 wash · 湖 lake
Radicals sit in predictable places:
Stuck on a character? Spot its radical, count its strokes, and find it in the radical index — exactly how paper and app dictionaries are organized.
Start with the Essential 50 below, then explore all 214.