How to Write 猎 (liè) — Meaning “Hunt”

Imagine a hunter with a dog (犭) going into the 'past' (昔) to hunt, suggesting an old-fashioned way of hunting. This visual links the animal radical to the idea of hunting and the phonetic part as a time reference.

Pay attention to the left radical 犭: it has a distinct hook stroke after the first two strokes, and it should be narrower than the right side. The right part 昔 must be written with eight strokes, starting with horizontal and vertical, and the bottom should be balanced. A common mistake is making the left radical too wide or forgetting the hook.

The character 狠 (hěn) means 'cruel' and has the right part 艮 (gèn), while 猎 has 昔. 狊 (jú) is a very rare character meaning a type of monkey and is not used in modern Chinese. Visually, 猎's right side has a top cross stroke and a lower horizontal line, unlike 狠 which has a dot on top of 艮.

猎 appears in common words like 打猎 (dǎ liè, to hunt) and 猎人 (liè rén, hunter), and is used in formal or literary contexts. In modern China, recreational hunting is restricted, but traditional hunting culture still exists among some ethnic minority groups, often associated with subsistence or heritage.

Common words containing 猎 include: 打猎 (dǎ liè) — to hunt; 猎人 (liè rén) — Hunter; 猎狗 (liè gǒu) — Hunting dog.