Han character 閧

It has a battle-cry reading and a separate alley reading.

The historical trail runs through 鬨: Shuowen, an early Chinese character dictionary, quotes a Mencius passage about Zou and Lu under that graph. 閧 changes its outer component from 鬥 to 門 and is also recorded as a variant of 巷.

The readings split by language and reference tradition. Japanese とき is pronounced roughly “to-kee” and means a battle cry; ちまた means an alley or village road. In Mandarin's Pinyin spelling system, hòng (a rough, back-of-the-throat h with a falling tone) points to 鬨, while xiàng (a soft sibilant start and a falling tone) points to 巷.

閧 war cry: what did it name?

It was a rallying shout around a battle.

In Japanese historical writing, opposing sides made the cry before fighting. A 1247 entry in Azuma Kagami, a Japanese historical chronicle, records troops doing so. 勝鬨 is the victory cry; 閧の声 is an older or literary way to write “battle cry.”

Should I send 閧 alone?

Use it only when the source makes the spelling deliberate.

By itself, 閧 does not reliably signal a mood. For a battle-cry meaning, use 鬨 in ordinary writing; for an alley, use 巷. Keep 閧 when quoting a source or deliberately retaining its spelling.