Chinese character 貁

It has two recorded animal senses: a weasel-like animal and a primate. In Mandarin, 貁 is read yòu, roughly like “yo” with a falling tone. A small-seal form, an older style of Chinese script, is recorded. The Shuowen Jiezi, a Chinese character dictionary compiled in 100 CE, describes it as a mouse-kind animal that turns well; later lexicographic glosses identify it as weasel-like.

The later rhyme dictionary Guangyun links 貁 to 狖, a name for a dark, long-tailed primate. A 2025 study argues that this primate name most likely referred to François’ langur and traces shifts in what the name referred to across Chinese writing and natural-history sources.

Are 貁 and 狖 the same character?

Later dictionaries link them, but 貁 has its own older gloss. Guangyun pairs 貁 with 狖 as the same entry, naming a dark, long-tailed primate. The earlier Shuowen gloss instead puts 貁 among mouse-kind or weasel-like animals. Treat them as historically linked characters, not automatic substitutes: the source determines which sense is meant.