革 (gé) is a Chinese character meaning “leather”. It is written from 廿 (twenty) and 口 (mouth) and ㇐ (horizontal stroke) and ㇑ (vertical stroke), and takes 9 strokes.
Build the character for “leather; to change”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
StartLearn this character
Structure
廿 + 口 + ㇐ + ㇑
Overlapping structure
Structure from: Unicode U+9769 and hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 modern glyph inspection (9 strokes: 廿 top / 口 middle / 横 / 长竖). Modern shape analysis only, not a historical account.
Memory aid
A hide pegged out to dry: the frame 廿 across the top, a stretched panel 口 in the middle, one long horizontal ㇐ pulled tight underneath, and a vertical ㇑ driven straight down through all of it.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
9 strokes
In real words
- 革命gé mìngrevolution; to revolt革 = gé
- 皮革pí géleather; hide革 = gé
- 辛亥革命xīn hài gé mìngthe Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which ended dynastic rule in China革 = gé
Go deeper
All readings
leather; to change
leather; animal hide with the hair removed; to change, to transform, to remove from office
去毛加工过的兽皮；也表示改变、除去。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 革命gé mìngrevolution; to revolt革 = gé
- 皮革pí géleather; hide革 = gé
- 辛亥革命xīn hài gé mìngthe Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which ended dynastic rule in China革 = gé
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 革 mean?
革 (gé) means leather; animal hide with the hair removed; to change, to transform, to remove from office.
How do you pronounce 革?
It is pronounced gé.
What parts is 革 made of?
廿 (twenty) and 口 (mouth) and ㇐ (horizontal stroke) and ㇑ (vertical stroke). The recorded source is: Unicode U+9769 and hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 modern glyph inspection (9 strokes: 廿 top / 口 middle / 横 / 长竖). Modern shape analysis only, not a historical account.. Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 革 have?
9. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 革?
革. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 革?
Common ones are 革命 and 皮革. The reading of 革 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.