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I've seen some kanjis have this figure inside it. It's similar to other radicals and kanjis, but I couldnt find anywhere that it is a kanji or radical of its own. Is this a kanji or a radical by its own? Being able to identify part of a kanji as another kanji or as a radical helps memorizing them

I can't type the symbol with my computer, if someone can please add it to the title it would be appreciated and it would make the question more descriptive and useful for others

enter image description here

For example it's used in this one above enter image description here

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  • Do you have any examples of kanji using this?
    – BCDeWitt
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 20:10
  • I've seen several ones, but right now the "constitution" kanji. I will update the topic with a picture
    – Pablo
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 20:29

2 Answers 2

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This would appear to be the kanji 主. This is not a radical itself: this character is composed of the single-stroke radical 丶 followed by the body 王. Although this is not a radical, the kanji does appear as a component of other more-complicated characters, as you note.

(For what it's worth, the radical of the 憲 character is 心, the element on the bottom.)

Update

User istrasci pointed out that the central component of 憲 is four strokes, not five. Upon further research into the historical development of the character, it is clear that this component was originally something more like 丰 ("ear of grass" pictogram) or 丯 ("dense"), where the vertical stroke extends below the bottom-most horizontal bar.

So depending on the context in which you see the graphical element you included in your post, it might be 主, or it might be one of these other elements.

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    I am dubious of this answer. 主 is a 5-stroke character, but the "same" part within 憲 is only 4 strokes (the top 点 is not separate, but in fact one solid vertical stroke). The 4-stroke part is found in other kanji as well, like 害. I'd like to hear someone else weigh in on this.
    – istrasci
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 21:47
  • @istrasci, for 害, the central component was originally three straight lines with a vertical bar that extended through the bottom. See character 12 on this page of the Kangxi dictionary, for instance.
    – Eiríkr Útlendi
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 21:54
  • Looking up 憲, it appears that too was originally the three-bars-plus-vertical, as seen in character 11 on this page. I'll amend my answer.
    – Eiríkr Útlendi
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 21:56
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Kodansha labels the top part of 青い as a ''Growing Plant'' Grapheme in one of the kanji descriptions but I'm not sure if that's the same, as the middle part is shorter.

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