火

As an ideogram (pictograph), 火 was created by imitating the shape of fire. It evolved through roughly the following process into its modern form.

The standard form of 火 differs slightly between Chinese characters and Korean/Japanese characters:

• In Chinese, the left dot is shaped like a downward right stroke (㇔).

• In Korean and Japanese, it is horizontally mirrored, so the left dot faces the opposite direction.

The stroke order of 灬 (called yeonhwa-bal or "fire dots") is related to the radical 火 (fire). The fire radical has two main forms used as radicals:

The full form 火 (불화변, fire radical)

The variant 灬 (불화부 발, fire dots), which appears at the bottom of many characters.

In the Kangxi Dictionary, the fire radical is the 86th radical. As expected for a radical meaning "fire," it often appears in characters related to fire or heat.

Examples include:

熱 (heat)

灰 (ash)

炭 (charcoal)

燈 (lamp)

爆 (explode)

燃 (burn)

炅 (bright flame)

燒 (to burn)

炎/ 焰 (flame)

炮 (to roast)

焦 (to scorch)

煉 (to refine)

Interestingly, some characters have the fire radical but are not directly related to fire, such as:

然 (so, thus), which originally depicts roasting dog meat over fire as a ritual,

無 (none)

烏 (crow)

熊 (bear)

燕 (swallow)

So, while the fire radical often signals fire-related meaning, there are exceptions.