鰹

See also 鲣

Translingual

Etymology

Phono-semantic compound (形聲): semantic 魚 + phonetic 堅.

Han character

鰹 (radical 195 魚+11, 22 strokes, cangjie input 弓火尸水土 (NFSEG), four-corner 2731₄)

1. a skipjack tuna, a bonito, Katsuwonus pelamis (Japanese)
2. a great eel (Classical Chinese)
3. a kind of shark

References

• KangXi: page 1477, character 2
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 46437
• Dae Jaweon: page 2008, character 28
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 7, page 4709, character 14
• Unihan data for U+9C39

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Cantonese

Hanzi

鰹 (simplified 鲣, Yale gin1)

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Japanese

Kanji

鰹 (uncommon “Hyōgai” kanji)

Readings

• On: けん (ken)
• Kun: かつお (katsuo)

Etymology

/katuwo/ > /katuo/

From compound of 堅 (kata, "hard") + 魚 (uo, "fish"), from the long-standing practice of drying lower-grade tuna into hard blocks.

Alternately, from compound of 搗つ (katsu, "to subdue by striking") + 魚 (uo, "fish"), from the way in which these fish were subdued when catching them.

Noun

鰹 (hiragana かつお, romaji katsuo)

1. skipjack tuna, bonito: Katsuwonus pelamis

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Korean

Hanja

鰹 (hangeul 견, revised gyeon, McCune-Reischauer kyŏn, Yale kyen)

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Mandarin

Hanzi

鰹 (simplified 鲣, pinyin jiān (jian1), Wade-Giles chien¹)

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Vietnamese

Han character

鰹 (kiên)