草字头是“草”字的顶上部分，是汉字的一个部首，如今的写法是一横两竖。根据如今的规定，它的笔顺是先写一横，然后写两竖。
The head of the word “Cao” is the top part of the character “Cao”, which is a radical of the Chinese character. Nowadays, it is written horizontally and vertically. According to current regulations, its stroke order is to write one horizontal line first, and then two vertical lines.
现在这样写的草字头是简化字，过去繁体字的草字头的一横是中间断开的，印刷字体是并排的两个十字（计四画）。
The cursive heads written in this way are simplified characters. In the past, the cursive heads of traditional Chinese characters were broken in the middle, and the printed fonts were two crosses side by side (plan four paintings).
1.先说一说“草”字
有人看不起如今的简化字，说过去的繁体字是正体。其实，过去的繁体字也简化而得到的，例如，草字头更早的写法是“艸”。由两个屮组成，所以，查《康熙字典》以及《辞源》等字典、词典时，草字头的部首是六画。
屮，音chè，这是一个象形字，《说文解字》说它是“草木初生也。象丨出形，有枝茎也。”两个屮并在一起，就成了艸。艸是草木的草字原来的写法，也可以说是它的“正体字”。过去有些文人是坚持用艸，不肯用草的，他们认为草是“俗字”。
草，原来是意思 “橡子”（是橡树即栎树、柞树的籽粒），后来人们用“草”假借为“艸”，写作“草木”。但是借出去时间长了，就“不还”了，又新造出一个皂字（近似把草字的尾巴卷起来），来表示上面所说的“橡子”。橡子的壳可以把白色的织物染成黑色，所以“皂”就引申为黑色，如今还说“不分青红皂白”。这样，草就“一心一意”成了花草树木的草，而原先的那个艸字，却被扔在了一边，除了几位“老古董”之外，没有什么人用这个字了，等于废了。
2. 草字头的字都与草有关
草字头的字，从原则上说，都与草有关。
有的是草的组成部分，例如茎（莖）就是草梗，花（華）是草的繁殖器官，上古的时候写成華，后来造出来一个花字，而華则表示光彩、繁盛、中華等意思，并把它简化为华。又如芽、英（也是花）、苞（花骨朵）、芒（草尖）、苗等。
有的是草的名称，当然，古人的分类不像如今那样科学，只是指与草类似的植物或像上述植物样子的生物。如芦、苇、芝、茅、蒿、萍、苔、艾、藻、菅、萧、菟、荼、茶、荷、莲等等。这类字最多。
有的则由草而引出的某些性质，如莽、茫、荒、芬、芳、苦（苦本来是植物名称，后因其味苦而强调其味）等等。
总而言之，凡草字头的字，都与草有关。
3. 少数字不是真的草字头
但是，有些字如今看起来像草字头，在《新华字典》中查部首索引也放在“草字头”的部首中，但它们却不是草字头。这些字大概有这样几类：
像荣、营、莹、萦、萤等模样，即凡是“草字头”下面连“秃宝盖”的所有字都是因简化而得到的假草字头。例如上面几个字的繁体字分别是榮、營、瑩、縈等，都是上面两个火下面秃宝盖，由于写草体字，上面两个火就“草”成了草字头的模样。
共、恭、巷、黄等字的上方，最初是一个廿，不是草字头。
夢（梦）、薨、蔑、敬、舊（旧）、護（护）、蠖、獲（获）、獾、灌、罐、鹳、權（权）、颧、勸（劝）等字上方也不是真的草字头，它们与芈（前些时候有电视剧很盛行）上面两个角上的部分是一样的，都是“羊头”，都与类似羊角那样的东西有关。
至于节，这是節的節化字，竹字头的草书许多都写成草字头。
这些假的草字头的字，并不多，而且很有规律，很容易看出来的。
顺便说一下，由于简化字的缘故，也有几个真的草字头却弄得不是草字头了。如，兰，这是兰花的兰，繁体字是蘭；盖（原义是用草苫上、盖上），繁体字是蓋。
4. 一些字有草字头但现在的意思好像与草无关
有些字是草字头，本义应当与草有关，但是在长期的文字演变过程中，它有了别的引申义，其本义却被人渐渐地忘却了。我们来举几个例子。
艺，看到艺字，令人想起来的是艺术、文艺、技艺、工艺等意思。但是，它的本义是种植，一开始写为𡎐，后来写为蓺，园蓺（艺）还有种植的意思，有园蓺引申到技艺、工艺、艺术等，字体也变成了藝。最后，老百姓嫌这个字太繁了，就把藝简化，写成了艺。《诗经·小雅·楚茨》：“我艺黍稷”中的艺就是种植，这句话后来也写到了《千字文》里。
若，现在一般与“如”相同，常常说“如若”，但是，《说文解字》说这个字的原义是“择菜”，上面是艸，下面右表示手，表示用手摘菜。引申为选择，《国语·晋语》中秦穆公对他的两位大夫子明和公孙枝说：“夫晋国之乱，吾谁使先若夫二公子而立之？”这里的若就是选择。不过，人们一般实在极少这样用了。现在的“如”，是假借。还有的意思是“你、你的”，《史记》中记载，项羽抓住了刘邦的父亲，威胁要“烹”了他，刘邦说，我们约为兄弟，“吾翁即若翁。必欲烹尔翁，则幸分我一杯羹”。说“我爸就是你爸”，碰到这样的刘邦，以流氓对流氓，项羽真是没有办法。这里的若，也是假借，借为“乃、尔”，也就是你。现在人们大多只记得如若，借出去太久了，本义人们已经忘却了。
莫，现在人们的印象就是“不、不要”，看不出与草的关系。其实，这是一个很有意思的会意字。上面的草字头是艸，底下的“大”原来也是艸，中间的日（太阳）落到草叢中间去了，也就是太阳落山了。“莫”（太阳没了）又引申为无，勿、不等表示否定的意思。后来，莫就专门表示这个引申义了，而在原来的“落日”“天黑了”这个意思上的莫被写成了“暮”。这个新造的字，下面多加上了一个日，有点重复，但是大家也都接受了。以“莫”为音符，所造出来一些字，都有被盖掉、没掉的意思：墓（藏地下了），幕（用巾围上了），慕（在心里面向往、思念）。
苛，原义是小草。引申为琐碎的，细小的、繁琐的。例如，苛法(烦琐严厉的法令);苛求(过于严厉、琐碎地要求)， 苛刻（过于严厉、刻薄）。
董，古人称某种水生植物，像蒲草而较细，也有人说就是藕。但是，这个意义人们已经不用了，人们只把董用作统率（董统）、管理（董成）、守正（董道）、监督之意。陈琳《为袁绍檄豫州》中赞扬袁绍“董统鹰扬，扫除凶逆。”（率领大军，扫除凶逆）。屈原《九章·涉江》：“余将董道而不豫兮，固将重昏而终身。”（我将守正道而不犹豫，即便终身处在黑暗之中）。如今还有“董事”一职，“董事会”的组织，说让某人“董其事”，董都是管理、负责、监督的意思。
荐、薦。现在一般认为，荐是薦的简化字，现在是推举、推荐、举荐的意思。古时候，荐和薦是不同的两个字。薦是一种草，据说是能够分辨是非的鹿类神兽廌所吃的草。荐是一种草席，古人席地而坐，荐就是垫在下面的草席。引申为垫在下面，又引申为进献、再引申为推举。由于荐、薦同音，古人多假借，以后很多人就认为是一个字的不同写法了，最后把薦简化为荐。
藐，原义是茈草，也就是紫草。后来假借为眇，眇是眼睛小，引申为小、小看。《孟子》：“说大人则藐之”。如今也多用藐视。本来都是用的用眇字的，但是，人们已经习惯用藐来假借。时间长了，也就忘记了藐的原义。
这样的字，当然还有不少，如今看这些字，不容易看出它们与草的关系，但是它们的本义都与草有关。
5. 化学家创造的带草字头的字
在近代产生的汉字中，化学家是造字的“大家”。近代大多数的新字是他们造出来的。一方面，他们造了一些新字，另一方面，他们是利用了一些死亡的或接近死亡的汉字，对这些字赋予了新的字音与字义。其中有草字头的化学用字主要有：苯、萘、芘、苄、苊、茚、萜、蒽、菲等（菲字的其他意义也还常用）。
这些字都是拉丁语术语的音译，除了草字头部分的那个字的读音就是拉丁语术语中开头音节的读音。
在这些字中，最早音译的字是苯。英语为benzene，此字来源于benzoic，又源于法语benjoin，意大利语benzoino，意思是安息香。这是安息香树分泌的树脂，中国古代就从南方或南洋得到。这样，在翻译的时候，由于benzene这个词的来源与植物的分泌物有关，又是从芬芳这个意义上来的，于是就翻译成了带草字头的苯。苯是一个古人不用而接近于废掉了的汉字，化学家利用了起来，读音没有变。
萘是并在一起的两个苯环，苄基是甲基上的一个氢原子被苯基所取代，剩下的那些带草字头的基团或化合物都带有或并有一个或多个苯环（至少在初始命名的时候是这样），他们都可以看作是苯的衍生物，被称为芳香性化合物（实际上并不一定都有真正悦人的芳香味）。在翻译他们的名称的时候，也就都随着他们的“前辈”——苯，都带上了草字头。
这些字，都是近代才由化学家们新造的或者是“废物利用”翻新的。由于它们的根基，苯，是从与植物有关的词翻译过来的，这些字都带草字头也都可以理解了，对于草字头的字义来说，也还算有个来历。为了翻译这些词，造出来这些字，早期的这些中国化学家真是煞费苦心啊。
然而，先辈化学家的这种苦心，如今人们大都不知道了。我们的化学教科书上不说这种。不单是化学用字、词，其他学科如数学、物理、生物等学科也有这个问题。我们的教科书应当包含一些科学史（包括中国科学史）的知识，教师不一定讲授，学生自己一看便知，这对于提高学生的科学素质是十分有益的。但是，如今有些知识却日益被时间所湮没，知道的人已经少之又少了。如果再不努力发掘和记录，恐怕以后“考古”的任务将更加艰巨。但是，这些问题目前似乎并没有得到有关方面的足够重视。
1. Let me talk about the word “grass” first
Some people look down on the simplified characters nowadays and say that the traditional characters in the past are in orthodoxy. In fact, the traditional characters in the past were also simplified. For example, the earlier wording of the initials in cursive is “艸”. It consists of two 屮, so when looking up “Kangxi Dictionary” and “Ciyuan” and other dictionaries, dictionaries, the radicals of the beginning of the grass are six pictures.
屮, sound chè, this is a pictographic character, “Shuowen Jiezi” said that it is “the first birth of plants and trees. The image is out of shape, there are branches and stems.” Two 屮 together, it becomes a 豸. 艸 is the original wording of grass and trees, and it can also be said to be its “traditional character”. In the past, some literati insisted on using grass instead of using grass. They thought grass was a “vulgar word.”
Grass originally meant “acorn” (the seeds of oak trees, namely oak trees and tussah). Later, people used “grass” as “grass” and wrote “grass”. But if the loan took a long time, it was “not returned”, and a new soap character (approximately rolled up the tail of the grass character) was created to represent the “acorn” mentioned above. The shell of an acorn can dye white fabric black, so “soap” is extended to black. Nowadays, it is said that “indiscriminately”. In this way, the grass “single-mindedly” became the grass of flowers, trees, and trees, but the original word “艸” was thrown aside. Apart from a few “old antiques”, no one used this word anymore, which was trash.
2. The words at the beginning of the word “Cao” are related to “Cao”
In principle, the characters at the beginning of the word “cursive” are related to grass.
Some are the components of grass. For example, the stem (stem) is the stalk, and the flower (hua) is the reproductive organ of the grass. In ancient times, it was written as hua, and later a flower character was created. Hua means glorious, prosperous, and Chinese. And simplified it to Hua. There are also buds, English (also flowers), buds (flower bones), awns (grass tips), seedlings and so on.
Some are the names of grasses. Of course, the ancient classification is not as scientific as it is today, but refers to plants similar to grass or creatures that look like the above-mentioned plants. Such as reeds, reeds, mushrooms, grass, wormwood, pine, moss, wormwood, algae, sage, Xiao, dodder, tea, tea, lotus, lotus and so on. This type of word is the most.
Some have certain properties derived from grass, such as recklessness, vastness, desolation, fragrance, fragrance, bitterness (bitterness is originally the name of the plant, but it is later emphasized because of its bitter taste) and so on.
All in all, all the words starting with grass are related to grass.
3. Fewer numbers are not really cursive prefixes
However, some characters now look like cursive prefixes. In the “Xinhua Dictionary”, the index of the radicals is also placed in the radicals of “cursive prefixes”, but they are not cursive prefixes. These words are roughly in the following categories:
It looks like Rong, Ying, Ying, Ying, Ying, etc., that is, all the words with “Bald Baogai” under the “Cao” are fake grass prefixes obtained by simplification. For example, the traditional characters of the above characters are Rong, Ying, Ying, Ying, etc., which are all bald Baogai under the two fires on the top. Because of the cursive writing, the two fires on the top have the appearance of “grass” at the beginning of the word.
At the top of the words Gong, Gong, Xiang, and Huang, there was a Twenty at first, not the beginning of a cursive.
Dream (dream), 薨, contempt, respect, old (old), protect (protect), worm, get (get), badger, guan, pot, stork, right (right), zygomatic, persuade (persuade) and other words above They are not really cursive heads either. They are the same as the parts on the two horns on the upper two corners of Mi (there was a popular TV series earlier). They are both “sheep’s heads”, and they are all related to things like shofar horns.
As for the festival, this is the jiehua character of the festival, and many of the cursive characters with the initials of bamboo are written as the initials of cursive.
These fake cursive characters are not many, and they are very regular, so they are easy to see.
By the way, due to the simplified characters, there are also a few real cursive prefixes that are not cursive. For example, Lan, this is the orchid of the orchid, the traditional Chinese character is Lan; the traditional Chinese character is Gai (the original meaning is to use grass thatch to cover, cover), the traditional Chinese character is Gai.
4. Some words have the beginning of cursive but the meaning now seems to have nothing to do with cursive
Some characters are at the beginning of cursive and their original meaning should be related to cursive. However, in the long-term process of character evolution, it has other extended meanings, but its original meaning is gradually forgotten. Let’s give a few examples.
Art, when you see the word art, you can recall the meanings of art, literature and art, skills, and craftsmanship. However, its original meaning is planting. At first it was written as 𡎐, and later it was written as 蓺. Yuanling (art) also means planting, and Yuanling (art) has the meaning of planting, and the font has also become art. In the end, the people thought that the word was too complicated, so they simplified art and wrote art. “The Book of Songs·Xiaoya·Chuci”: The art in “My Art Millet” is planting, and this sentence was later written in “Thousand Characters”.
Ruo is generally the same as “如”, and it is often said “如若”. However, “Shu Wen Jie Zi” says that the original meaning of this word is “choose dishes”, the upper part is 艸, and the lower right means hand, which means picking vegetables by hand. The extension is choice. In “Guoyu·Jinyu”, Qin Mugong said to his two great masters, Ming and Gongsunzhi: “The rebellion of the husband and the Jin country, who should I make the two sons of Xian Ruofu stand up?” Here Ruo is the choice. However, people rarely use it this way. The current “such as” is a fake loan. It also means “you, yours”. It is recorded in the “Historical Records” that Xiang Yu caught Liu Bang’s father and threatened to “cook” him. Liu Bang said that we are dating brothers, “I am a man. I must be a man. If you want to cook Erwong, you will be lucky enough to share a piece of the pie.” Said “My dad is your dad”, when encountering Liu Bang like this, Xiang Yu can’t do anything about treating a gangster with a gangster. The Ruo here is also a pretence, borrowed as “Nai, Er”, that is, you. Nowadays, most people only remember Ruruo, borrowing for too long, the original meaning has been forgotten by people.
Mo, people now have the impression of “no, don’t,” and they can’t see the relationship with grass. In fact, this is a very interesting understanding word. The word “grass” on the top is 艸, and the “big” at the bottom is also 艸. The sun (sun) in the middle has fallen into the middle of the grass, which means that the sun has set. “Mo” (the sun is gone) is extended to nothing, and don’t or unequal means negative. Later, Mo specifically expressed this extended meaning, and Mo in the original meaning of “sunset” and “dark” was written as “twilight”. This newly created word has one more day added below, which is a bit repetitive, but everyone has accepted it. With “Mo” as the musical note, some of the characters created have the meaning of being covered up or not: the tomb (hidden underground), the curtain (enclosed with a towel), and Mu (longing for and longing in the heart).
Severe, the original meaning is grass. The extension is trivial, small, and cumbersome. For example, harsh laws (trivial and severe laws); harsh (too harsh, trivial requirements), harsh (too harsh, harsh).
Dong, the ancients called a certain kind of aquatic plant, which is thinner like rushes, and some people say it is lotus root. However, this meaning is no longer used by people. People only use Dong as the meaning of command (Dong Tong), management (Dong Cheng), Shouzheng (Dong Dao), and supervision. Chen Lin praised Yuan Shao in “For Yuan Shao Yu Zhou”, “Dong Tong Ying Yang, sweep away the evil.” (lead the army to sweep away the evil). Qu Yuan’s “Nine Chapters · Shejiang”: “I will not hesitate to Dong Dao, and I will be fainted for life.” (I will keep the right way without hesitation, even if I live in the dark for life). Nowadays, there is still the position of “director”, the organization of the “board of directors”, when someone is asked to “direct his affairs”, directors mean management, responsibility, and supervision.
Recommend, recommend. It is generally believed that recommendation is a simplified word for recommendation, and now it means recommendation, recommendation, and recommendation. In ancient times, recommended and recommended were two different words. Jian is a kind of grass, which is said to be the grass eaten by deer gods and beasts who can distinguish right from wrong. Jian is a kind of straw mat. The ancients sat on the ground, and Jian is the straw mat underneath. The extension is to put it below, then it is to contribute, and then it is to be recommended. Since recommendation and recommendation have the same pronunciation, the ancients often borrowed it, and in the future many people thought it was a different way of writing one word, and finally simplified recommendation to recommendation.
藐, the original meaning is chrysanthemum, which is comfrey. Later, under the guise of sing, sing means small eyes, which is extended to be small and small. “Mencius”: “Speaking of adults will despise them.” Contempt is often used nowadays. Originally, they were all used to use the word stun, but people have become accustomed to using contempt to borrow. Over time, the original meaning of contempt is forgotten.
Of course, there are many such characters. Nowadays, looking at these characters, it is not easy to see the relationship between them and grass, but their original meanings are all related to grass.
5. Words with cursive prefixes created by chemists
Among the Chinese characters produced in modern times, the chemist is the “big man” who made the characters. They created most of the new characters in modern times. On the one hand, they created some new characters. On the other hand, they used some dead or near-death Chinese characters to give these characters new sounds and meanings. Among them, the chemical words with the beginning of the grass are mainly: benzene, naphthalene, pyrene, benzyl, acenaphthene, indene, terpene, anthracene, phenanthrene, etc. (the other meanings of phenanthrene are also commonly used).
These characters are all transliterations of Latin terms, except for the pronunciation of the initial part of the word in the grass, which is the pronunciation of the opening syllable in the Latin term.
Among these characters, the earliest transliterated word is benzene. English is benzene, this word is derived from benzoic, and also from French benjoin, Italian benzoino, which means benzoin. This is the resin secreted by the benzoin tree, which was obtained from the South or Southeast Asia in ancient China. In this way, when translating, since the source of the word benzene is related to the secretions of plants, it also comes from the meaning of fragrance, so it is translated into benzene with a cursive prefix. Benzene is a Chinese character that the ancients didn’t use but was almost obsolete. Chemists used it, and the pronunciation did not change.
Naphthalene is two benzene rings combined together, benzyl is a hydrogen atom on the methyl group replaced by a phenyl group, and the remaining groups or compounds with cursive heads all carry or incorporate one or more benzenes. Rings (at least in the initial naming), they can all be regarded as derivatives of benzene, called aromatic compounds (in fact, they do not necessarily have a truly pleasant aroma). When translating their names, they followed their “predecessors”-Benz, with the initials of cursive characters.
These words were newly created by chemists or refurbished by “waste utilization” in modern times. Because of their roots, benzene, are translated from words related to plants. These words are all understandable with the beginning of grass. For the meaning of the beginning of grass, it can be considered as a source. In order to translate these words and create these characters, these early Chinese chemists really took great pains.
However, the painstaking effort of the advanced chemists is now largely unknown to people. Our chemistry textbook does not say this. It is not only the words and words used in chemistry, but also other subjects such as mathematics, physics, and biology. Our textbooks should contain some knowledge about the history of science (including the history of Chinese science). Teachers don’t necessarily teach it, and students know it at a glance. This is very useful for improving students’ scientific quality. However, nowadays, some knowledge is increasingly obliterated by time, and there are very few people who know it. If we do not work hard to excavate and record, I am afraid that the future “archaeological” task will be more difficult. However, it seems that these issues have not received enough attention from relevant parties.