狠
hěn HSK6

vicious

Phonosemantic compound. 犭 represents the meaning and 艮 represents the sound.

Components

犭
犭 Meaning component
quǎn dog

犭 is a component form of 犬.

艮
艮 Sound component
gěn, gèn, hén blunt

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

說文解字

《說文》:“狠,吠鬭聲。从犬,艮聲。”

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical images
Academia Sinica