Dried-Fish Ideograph

It means dried fish; some dictionaries use it for a freshwater fish.

As of 2026, the earliest known written example is in the Han Shu, an early Chinese history: 鮿鮑千鈞 lists 鮿 with fish goods measured by weight.

Later Chinese dictionaries distinguish the preparations: 玉篇, an early character dictionary, glosses salted fish; 集韻, a later dictionary of pronunciations and rhymes, gives fish dried without salt. As of 2026, Taiwan's Ministry of Education dictionary notes that 鮿 is absent from 說文, an early character dictionary. Japanese dictionaries also give ほしうお, literally “dried fish,” and ちょう, a reading from the historical Chinese-derived layer of Japanese.

How do I type 鮿?

Use a Chinese input method, character viewer, or Unicode-hex entry.

On a Chinese keyboard using Pinyin—the Latin-letter system for entering Mandarin—try zhé or zhe2, then check the candidates. As of 2026, a Taiwanese input dictionary lists the Cangjie keystrokes NFSJU. If 鮿 does not appear, try component or stroke input.

As of 2026, Unicode documents Windows Alt+X, macOS Unicode Hex Input with Option+9BBF, and GNOME/GTK Linux entry with Ctrl+Shift+u, then 9bbf and Space or Enter.

Why does 鮿 look different in another font?

The character stays the same; fonts can draw it differently.

As of 2026, Unicode's font guidance explains that Han characters can have locale-specific glyph forms: the encoded character remains 鮿 even when stroke shapes vary. If the chosen font lacks it, a fallback font may show a different drawing.