鬼 — the “ghost” radical

Radical #194 11 strokes

demons, spirits 5 of the JLPT kanji on this site are built with it — recognizing the piece makes them far easier to remember.

Kanji using the 鬼 radical (5)

魅fascination, charm 魔witch, demon 鬼ghost, devil 魂soul, spirit 魁charging ahead of others

← 髟 long hair 魚 fish →

Radicals (部首, bushu) are the shared building blocks of kanji, used to sort them in every dictionary. Learn the common ones and new kanji stop looking random.