How to Write 瘕 (jiǎ) — Meaning “mass in the abdomen; obstruction”

Imagine that you have a 'false' (叚) lump in your belly caused by an illness (疒) – the radical shows sickness, and 叚 sounds like "jia" as in "false" in Chinese. This visual of a fake lump helps you connect 瘕 to the idea of an abdominal mass.

The left radical 疒 is written with three strokes (dot, dot, lift) and should be narrow. The right part 叚 has a complicated 11-stroke structure; be careful to write the two inner horizontal strokes fully and not connect them to the outer box. A common mistake is making the right side too wide or misplacing the vertical stroke in the middle of 叚.

All three use the disease radical 疒, but their right parts differ: 瘕 has 叚 (jiǎ, suggesting a mass), 痘 has 豆 (dòu, meaning bean, referring to pox lesions), and 痛 has 甬 (tōng, related to pain). Visually, 瘕’s right side has many short horizontal lines, while 痘 has a simpler 豆 and 痛 has 甬 with a vertical line through a box.

瘕 appears mainly in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) terms like 症瘕 (zhēng jiǎ) and 腹瘕 (fù jiǎ), referring to abdominal masses or tumors. It is not common in daily conversation but is important for reading TCM literature or classical medical texts. Culturally, it reflects the TCM concept of pathological accumulations in the body.

Common words containing 瘕 include: 症瘕 (zhēng jiǎ) — abdominal mass; 瘕聚 (jiǎ jù) — abdominal mass; conglomeration; 腹瘕 (fù jiǎ) — abdominal mass.