How to Write 甴 (zhá) — Meaning “cockroach (part of the word 曱甴)”

Imagine a cockroach scurrying across a field (田), leaving a crooked trail that looks like the extra vertical line inside the box. The small stroke going down and then right can remind you of the insect's quick, zigzag movement. Think of the number 5 strokes as a reminder that cockroaches have five body sections.

甴 has only 5 strokes: first write the outer box of 田, then add the vertical stroke that goes all the way down through the bottom, finally add the short horizontal stroke that juts out to the right. A common mistake is making the inner vertical line too short or placing the horizontal stroke too high; it should cross the vertical line near the bottom inside the box.

甴 looks like 田 but has an extra short horizontal stick extending right from the vertical stroke inside the box; 田 is simply a box with a cross inside. Compared to 由, which has a vertical line descending below the box, 甴 has both a descending vertical and a short horizontal tick to the right. In usage, 甴 never stands alone—it only appears in the dialectal word 曱甴, while 田 and 由 are common characters with their own meanings.

甴 is extremely rare and is only found in the dialectal compound 曱甴 (yuē zhá), which means 'cockroach' in Cantonese and some southern dialects. It is not used in standard Mandarin or in HSK vocabulary, and you will almost never see it in daily writing. The character is mainly encountered in regional texts or discussions about Cantonese language and culture.

Common words containing 甴 include: 曱甴 (yuē zhá) — cockroach (Cantonese/dialectal).