How to Write 裆 (dāng) — Meaning “Crotch (of trousers)”

Think of a pair of pants hanging on a hanger—the left side 衤 looks like the hanger, and the right side 当 looks like a dangling pocket or opening at the crotch. You can also remember it by the sound "dang" as in "something dangly" between the legs.

The left radical 衤 is narrow and has a specific stroke order: dot, dot, vertical stroke, horizontal stroke, then two small strokes. The right side 当 starts with a small vertical, then a horizontal with a hook, and finally the mouth 口 inside. A common mistake is making the left side too wide or mixing up the order of the two small strokes.

衲 (nà) means to patch or a monk's robe, with the phonetic 内 (nèi), and is used in words like 百衲衣 (patched robe). 衹 (zhǐ) is a rare variant of 只 meaning "only" and usually has the radical 衤 but is not commonly used. In contrast, 裆 specifically refers to the crotch of trousers and is used in everyday clothing vocabulary.

裆 appears in common words like 裤裆 (crotch of trousers) and 开裆裤 (open-crotch pants for babies). Culturally, 开裆裤 is a traditional Chinese design for infants to make diaper changes or toilet training easier without removing the whole pants.

Common words containing 裆 include: 裤裆 (kù dāng) — Crotch of trousers; 开裆裤 (kāi dāng kù) — open-crotch pants; 低裆裤 (dī dāng kù) — drop-crotch pants; low-crotch pants.