What 鮹 means
Chinese uses it for a fish; Japanese for octopus. Chinese references name a long, slender sea fish 烟管鱼 (“pipefish”) or 马鞭鱼 (“horsewhip fish”). In Japanese, 鮹 is a rare kanji spelling of たこ, the ordinary word for octopus.
A Chinese dictionary tradition explains the fish name through its shape: the belly resembles a horsewhip and the forked tail a whip sheath, or cover. 本草和名, a Japanese dictionary of medicinal substances compiled around 918, records 小鮹魚 and 海蛸子 beside the Japanese word たこ, noting 蛸 as a graph used to write 鮹.
鮹: fish or octopus?
Check the language around it.
鮹魚 is a Chinese fish-name compound; 鮹（たこ） labels octopus in Japanese. The character alone does not settle which language is intended.
In Japanese, 鮹 is rare and marked; たこ in kana or 蛸 is clearer in ordinary writing.
In Chinese, 鮹 names a fish; a bare 鮹 can misfire if you mean Japanese octopus.
Who writes 鮹
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What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsA fish name; Chinese references also call it 烟管鱼 or 马鞭鱼.
Don't confuse it with
1
Combination ideas
2Questions people ask
1Why does 鮹 show as a box?
Usually, the font lacks this glyph. The text can still be intact; switch to a font with broader CJK coverage.
More like this
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How to type or find 鮹
- Also called
- たこ · tako · 蛸
- Search it as
- octopus kanji · pipefish character
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
鮹\9BB9Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.