Oar and Bow-Tool Character

In a Chinese Pinyin IME, try yi; Cangjie tables give DPT.

Enter yi without a tone mark in a Chinese IME and inspect the rare-character results; some dictionaries omit it. Cangjie reference tables give DPT, decomposed as 木 plus 世.

If it appears as a square, the active font lacks this CJK glyph. A font with CJK coverage can display it; input settings cannot add the missing glyph.

What does 枻 mean?

It names boat gear or a tool for straightening a bow.

In Mandarin Pinyin, yì sounds roughly like “ee” with a falling pitch and can mean a boat’s side, an oar, or a short paddle; one dictionary also glosses it as a rudder, and it can be a verb for rowing or steering. The separate reading xiè sounds roughly like “shyeh” with a falling pitch and names a tool for straightening a bow or crossbow. Japanese references list かい (kai, roughly “kah-ee”) and えい (ei, roughly “eh-ee”) as readings; ゆだめ (yudame, roughly “yoo-dah-meh”) names the bow-straightening tool.

The Warring States-era Chinese poetry collection Chu Ci uses 枻 in 桂櫂兮蘭枻 and 鼓枻而去 for boat gear. The classical philosophical text Xunzi includes 抴, and a commentary explains the bow implement as 檠枻. Bronze inscriptions show a form built from 木 and 世, with 世 as a sound component; that structure is linked with the older graph 枼.