Radical 5

乙
乙
乙 (U+4E59) "second, fishing hook"
Pronunciations
Pinyin:	yǐ
Bopomofo:	一ˇ
Gwoyeu Romatzyh:	yii
Wade–Giles:	i3
Cantonese Yale:	yut
Jyutping:	jyut3
Pe̍h-ōe-jī:	it
Japanese Kana:	オツ otsu (on'yomi); きのと kinoto /おと oto (kun'yomi)
Sino-Korean:	을 eul
Hán-Việt:	ất
Names
Japanese name(s):	乙 otsu; 乙繞/おつにょう otsunyoū; 釣り針/つりばり tsuribari (fishing hook)
Hangul:	새 sae
Stroke order animation

Radical 5 or radical second (乙部), meaning "second", is one of 6 of the 214 Kangxi radicals that are composed of only one stroke. However, this radical is mainly used to categorize miscellaneous characters otherwise not belonging to any radical, mainly featuring a hook or fold, and 乙 is the character with the fewest strokes.

In the ancient Chinese cyclic character numeral system, 乙 represents the second Celestial stem (天干 tiāngān).

In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 42 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical.

In mainland China, 乙 along with other 14 associated indexing components, including 乚, etc., are affiliated to a new radical 乛 (乛部), which is the 5th principal indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries.^[1] Usually, only several out of the 15 variant components are listed under radical 乛 in dictionary indexes.

Evolution

Oracle bone script character
Bronze script character
Large seal script character
Small seal script character

Derived characters

Strokes	Characters
+0	乙乚乛^{Component only}
+1	乜九
+2	乞也习^SC (=習 -> 羽)
+3	乢乣乤^KO 乥^KO
+4	乧^KO
+5	乨乩乪乫^KO 乬^KO 乭^KO 乮^KO 乯^KO
+6	乱 (SC/JP, =亂) 乲^KO
+7	乳乴^KO 乵^KO 乶^KO 乷^KO 乸
+8	乹乺^KO 乻^KO 乼^KO 乽^KO
+10	乾乿亀^JP (=龜 -> 龜)
+11	亁 (=乾)
+12	亂亃亄

In the Unihan Database, 亀 (Japanese simplified form of 龜) falls under Radical 5 + 10 strokes, while other variants of 龜 (including Simplified Chinese 龟) fall under Radical 213 (龜 "turtle"), causing an inconsistency. However, in most Japanese dictionaries, 亀 is treated as a variant of Radical 213 (龜) and indexed Radical 213 + 0 strokes.

Sinogram

As an independent character it is a Jōyō kanji, or a kanji used in writing the Japanese language. It is a secondary school kanji.^[2] It is also used in the Chinese language.

It means "secondary" and is mainly used in compounds.