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Radical 214

traditional Chinese radical flute (U+2FD5)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ296261
Source-derived summary

Radical 214 meaning "flute" (龠部) is the only one of the 214 Kangxi radicals that is composed of 17 strokes, making it the radical that requires the most strokes.

In the Kangxi Dictionary there are 21 characters (out of 40,000) to be found under this radical.

龠 is also the 201st indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China.

Evolution

Pan flute and mouths (口 and 亼).

Characters with Radical 214

Literature

Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1.

Leyi Li: "Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases".

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Radical 214” is traditional Chinese radical flute (U+2FD5). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Radical, traditional and Chinese, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1987—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Radical, traditional and Chinese is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “traditional Chinese radical flute (U+2FD5)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q296261. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1987.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Radical 214”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Radical 214 primary sources, Radical 214 archive and Radical research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Radical 214”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Radical 214” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.