键 鍵
键鍵 in English
- key (on a piano or computer keyboard) / button (on a mouse or other device) / chemical bond / linchpin
Stroke order
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Stroke data from Make Me a Hanzi, derived from the Arphic PL fonts under the Arphic Public License.
How it used to be written
These are the forms of 鍵, the traditional character: 键 is a twentieth-century simplification, found in no ancient corpus.
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Small seal script -
Clerical script 西漢
Forms, sources and dates: the 字形演變 database of 小學堂, Academia Sinica, public domain (CC0).
Examples
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关键不在穿什么，而是怎么穿。
It's not what you wear, it's how you wear it.
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就像你们知道的那样，毅力是成功的关键。
Perseverance, as you know, is the key to success.
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当我们发电报的时候，简明扼要是关键，因为是以字计费的。
When you send a telegram, brevity is essential because you will be charged for every word.