鬼
← 193 Radical 194 (U+2FC1) 195 →
鬼 (U+9B3C) "ghost, demon"
Pronunciations
Pinyin:	guǐ
Bopomofo:	ㄍㄨㄟˇ
Wade–Giles:	kuei3
Cantonese Yale:	gwai2
Jyutping:	gwai2
Japanese Kana:	キ ki (on'yomi) おに oni (kun'yomi)
Sino-Korean:	귀 gwi
Hán-Việt:	quỷ, khuỷu, quẽ, quỉ
Names
Japanese name(s):	鬼/おに oni 鬼繞/きにょう kinyō
Hangul:	귀신 gwisin
Stroke order animation

Radical 194 or radical ghost (鬼部) meaning "ghost" or "demon" is one of the 8 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 10 strokes.

鬼 (9 strokes in Simplified Chinese) is also the 184th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China.

Evolution

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

The character is historically composed of 儿 "legs", 田 representing a large demon's head and a curl looking similar to 厶 taken to represent a swirl of vapour, or a demon's tail.

The character can be traced to the oracle bone script, where it depicts a man kneeling on a monster head.

Derived characters

Most of the characters derived from the radical have meanings related to ghosts or souls, including 魔 "devil, demon", 魑 "black magic", 魘 "nightmare", 魄 "soul". In some signs, however, the radical is present purely as a phonetic marker, for example in 魏, the State of Wei during the Spring and Autumn period.

Variant forms

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.
• Li, Leyi: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, ISBN 978-7-5619-0204-2
• Harbaugh, Rick, Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary, Yale University Press (1998), ISBN 978-0-9660750-0-7.[1]
• Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth (江伊莉), 甲骨文的“鬼”与假面具 (The Gui-Spirit in Oracle Bone Inscriptions), International Conference Celebrating the 95th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions", Anyang, China, 1994.