Radical 61 or radical heart (心部) meaning 'heart' is one of 34 of the 214 Kangxi radicals that are composed of 4 strokes.
When appearing at the left side of a Chinese character, the radical transforms into 忄, which consists of three strokes. When appearing at the bottom, it sometimes transforms into ⺗.
In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 1,115 characters (out of 40,000) to be found under this radical.
As a single radical the Chinese character means heart. It is one of the Kyōiku kanji or Kanji taught in elementary school in Japan.[1] It is a second grade kanji.[1]
Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN0-89659-774-1.
Leyi Li: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, ISBN978-7-5619-0204-2
GF 0011-2009 Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components prescribes 201 principle indexing components and 100 associated indexing components (in brackets) used in Simplified Chinese. Not all associated indexing components are listed above.