Chinese character 嵍

It names a mountain or describes a hill's slope.

Chinese records give it two lexical settings: in 巏嵍 (also written 巏務), it is part of a mountain name associated with Hebei; in 嵍丘, it is used for the same hill term as 旄 in 旄丘, for a hill higher at the front than at the back. Each sense belongs to a compound, not to a general description of mountains.

A graph on Chu bamboo slips from the Warring States has been proposed as a reduced form of 嵍, but scholars dispute that identification. A Han-period stele inscription is later quoted with the mountain name. Duan Yucai, a later commentator on the Shuowen Jiezi, an early Chinese character dictionary, says the 嵍 entry was added after the dictionary's original text. The mountain also appears in a legend about Wang Qiao, a legendary immortal; that story belongs to the place, not to a separate meaning of the character.

Why does 嵍 have two readings?

The surrounding term determines which reading applies.

Mandarin pinyin writes the mountain-name reading as wù, with a falling pitch, and the hill-term reading as máo, with a rising pitch. The Shuowen Jiezi analyzes 嵍 as 山 for meaning plus 敄 for sound: 山 points to terrain, while 敄 guides the pronunciation. This is a traditional explanation of the written form.

What does 嵍 mean in a message?

Alone, it does not show which recorded reading is intended.

Ask for the surrounding word or source text; the neighboring characters identify the mountain name or hill term.