When appearing as a left-side component, this radical is almost always written as 扌 (notable exceptions: 拜, although Japanese shinjitai analogizes it to 拝; and dialectal characters 掰, 搿), while it becomes a vertically compressed 手 when appearing as a bottom component.

In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 1203 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical.

手 is also the 80th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China, with 扌 being its associated indexing component.

The radical is also used as an independent Chinese character.

It is one of the Kyōiku kanji or Kanji taught in elementary school in Japan.