About
The character "犟" is a compound ideograph formed from the component "强", indicating strength or force, and the radical "牛", meaning ox, conceptually representing stubbornness through the metaphor of an unyielding animal. Its traditional form retains the same structure but uses the traditional variant "強" for the upper component. The etymology directly links the notion of forceful obstinacy to the depicted image, and the character's meaning has consistently denoted stubborn or inflexible behavior since its adoption into the lexicon.