CJK Unified Ideograph-883C

It means an earwig in 蠼螋, but classical texts use it differently.

In modern Chinese, 蠼 most predictably appears as the first character of 蠼螋, the compound for an earwig. The same glyph is also recorded with the reading jué in the 玃 branch: an old term for a large monkey, plus a classical verb sense glossed as leaping. Let the surrounding word, not the glyph alone, choose the reading.

Where did 蠼 come from?

Its history splits between an old animal word and an insect name.

An older insect-word trail appears as 蛷螋, attributed to the Guangya tradition. The earliest clear medical witness for the 蠼螋 spelling defensible here is around the 4th century, in the Jin-era tradition of 肘后备急方, where the insect is treated as injurious. The character does practical naming work in medical and natural-history writing, not emblem or reaction work.

By the Northern Song, 证类本草 lists 蠼螋 among insect materia medica. In the Ming-era 本草纲目, Li Shizhen explains the name through the insect's hiding under 氍毹, while a Qing-era editorial tradition disputes that story and argues that 蠼 is a sound-shifted form of 蛷. The argument is about word origin, not about whether 蠼螋 names an earwig. Connected forms preserve both routes: 玃 is the classical monkey branch, while 蠷螋 and 蛷螋 are alternate spellings of the insect word. Japanese also uses 蠼螋 as a non-jōyō spelling for はさみむし, showing the compound traveled as a written label.

What does 蠼 mean when someone sends it?

Alone, 蠼 is under-specified; the recipient needs the surrounding word.

If someone sends only 蠼, read it as a rare-character fragment, not a ready-made mood. In a modern Chinese message, 蠼螋 makes the insect reading explicit; in a quotation or literary line, the classical branch may be intended. Ask which word the sender means if the surrounding text does not settle it.