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Character
纟
Simplified纟
Traditional糹(獨立字形 糸)
Strokes3
Radical纟
FrequencyExtremely common as a component: one of the most productive radicals in Chinese, though never used as a standalone word.
纟 is not a word you can say on its own — it is the simplified form of the 'silk' radical, written on the left side of characters to do with thread, cloth, rope, colour and binding. Its traditional counterpart is 糹 (six strokes), the side-form of the standalone character 糸. You will meet it constantly, in 红/紅, 线/線, 纸/紙, 给/給, 经/經, 绿/綠 and hundreds more.
Mandarinsī · ㄙ
Cantonesesi1 · sī
The parent character 糸 is read mì (jyutping mik6) when treated as an independent character, but as a radical everyone calls it sī / si1 after 丝 'silk'.
radical (bound component)the 'silk' radical in its simplified left-side form; marks characters relating to thread, silk, cloth, rope, tying and colours
noun (of the parent character 糸)fine silk thread (archaic, only in classical or technical use)
Other pronunciations
mì · mik6 the standalone character 糸, a fine silk thread; the traditional dictionary radical name
How it is built
pictograph
Radical 纟. silk, thread.
纟meaning a cursive-derived contraction of 糹, itself the side form of 糸
Origin
The parent graph 糸 appears on oracle bones and bronzes as a picture of a twisted skein or hank of silk threads, with loops above and loose ends splayed at the bottom. In the regular script this became 糹 when squeezed onto the left of a character. The three-stroke 纟 of simplified Chinese comes from the long-established cursive (草书) way of writing 糹, where the loops collapse into two small turns over a single rising stroke; it was standardised in the 1950s simplification and applied wholesale to every character with this radical.
Remembering it
Two little loops and a flick at the bottom: a tangle of thread with the loose end hanging out. Whenever you see it, expect thread, cloth or colour — 线 line, 纸 paper, 绿 green, 织 to weave.
纟is a component, not a character you can use in a sentence; dictionaries file it under radical 120. Its spoken name in Mandarin is 绞丝旁 (jiǎosīpáng), in Cantonese 絞絲邊 (gaau2 si1 bin1). Traditional-character readers write 糹 with three dots at the foot, so 红/紅, 给/給, 经/經 differ only in this radical — learning the swap converts hundreds of characters at once. When 糸 sits at the bottom of a character (紧/緊, 素, 累) it keeps its full six-stroke shape even in simplified Chinese, except where the whole character was simplified.
Context
The density of silk-radical characters — for colours, for 经 'warp threads' hence 'classic text', for 结 'to tie' hence 'to conclude' — is a fossil of how central sericulture was to early Chinese life; abstract vocabulary about order and connection was borrowed straight from the loom.
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This page was written by an AI language model and may contain errors, particularly in etymology. Check anything you plan to rely on.
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