I need to learn what?

I think 男 is the radical. From 說文解字: 獲也從毌從力虍聲

Both 毌 and 力 are semantic components. 【六書正譌】生得者，則以索貫而拘之，故字从毌从力。俗从男，非。

And the Kangxi radical is 虍.

Alright now I'm just confused. So 虍聲 is wrong? Or I'm reading it wrong? It looks like it's saying it's the 音符.

Excellent, people are confused, I can see my work here is done :rolleyes:

MDBG gives the radical as 虍. But it could be wrong.

Hofmann, what is the difference between "semantic component" and "radical"?

虍聲 is right. (BTW, 虍 is pronounced 荒烏切 (hū). Lots of people get it wrong, probably because of 虎.)

MDBG is wrong a lot of the time, but not in this case.

"Radical" can mean "semantic component" or it can mean "the section under which the character is classified in dictionaries." I was just being more specific.

Ah, OK. So words have different/more vague meanings than I thought they did. Therein lay my confusion. Well, I'm glad that's cleared up!

According to Bernard Karlgren's Grammata Serica Recensa (they've now got data from the book as a part of Unicode's Unihan text), the phonetic for 虜 is the character found at

character missing because it kept messing up everything that followed it.

In case your browser isn't able to display the character.

They also got quite a few "variants" as well.

Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.

Now I'm confused (not so excellent...:o).

So 虍 is the radical in the sense that it is the traditional radical 虜 is categorized under in dictionaries. However, in this particular case, the (dictionary) radical does not actually indicate meaning. Interesting.

How common is this?

[Hofmann, BTW, MDBG gives hu3 as the reading for 虍 as the radical. Do you have a source for a reading of hu1, so a correction can be submitted?]

唐韻 says it's "同[u+271A3]". And that is 《篇海》力胡切，音蘆。飯器。《說文》缻也。《六書正譌》从凷虍聲。　又《字彙補》虎文也。　《唐韻》作[u+271A8]。

So according to Karlgren, there's no 毋 in it at all.

For a source, 國語辭典 or 康熙字典.

The 說文解字 entry I get from zdic is:

虜 獲也。从毌从力，虍聲。郎古切 文三

The 『說文解字注』 expands upon this:

獲也。公羊傳。爾虜焉。故凡虜囚亦曰纍臣。謂拘之以索也。於毌義相近。故从毌。从毌。从力。左傳曰。武夫力而拘諸原。虍聲。郞古切。五部。

So anyway, the signific elements are 毌 (貫) and 力. The phonetic element (and modern dictionary radical) is 虍.