How to Write 㐱 (zhěn) — Meaning “Ancient character meaning bushy hair or many”

Imagine a person (亻) with three big, messy hairs (彡) sticking out from their head. The three strokes look like thick strands of hair, so 㐱 visually shows 'bushy hair' on a person.

Write the left person radical (亻) first as a left-slanting stroke and a vertical stroke. Then add the three slanted strokes of 彡 from top to bottom, keeping them evenly spaced and parallel. A common mistake is making the person radical too wide or the three strokes too squished.

彡 is just the hair radical and is not a full character by itself, while 㐱 includes a person radical on the left. 形 (shape) has 开 on the left and 彡 on the right, so its meaning is unrelated to hair. Visually, 㐱 has a person on the left, while 形 has 开.

㐱 is a very rare character, mostly appearing in ancient texts or classical poetry to describe thick hair or dense clouds, as in '㐱发' (thick hair) or '㐱云' (thick clouds). It is not in the HSK list, so modern learners only need it for calligraphy or reading old literature.

Common words containing 㐱 include: 㐱㐱 (zhěn zhěn) — Thick or bushy (describing hair or clouds); 㐱发 (zhěn fā) — Thick hair; 㐱云 (zhěn yún) — Thick clouds.