Han character 鯋

It is a variant of 鯊, the Chinese character associated with shark.

Mandarin’s reading is shā, written in pinyin, the Latin-letter system for Mandarin sounds. In Chinese text, 鯊 is the traditional form and 鲨 the simplified form of the ordinary shark word; 鯋 preserves a variant spelling.

The Shuowen Jiezi, an early Chinese dictionary, has no 鯋 headword. It records the related graph 魦 and distinguishes it from 鯊 in the Book of Songs, an early poetry collection, where the fish is glossed as 吹沙, a small fish. A 997 Chinese dictionary, Longkan Shoujian, glossed 鯋 as 鯊; 997 dates that record, not the character’s creation.

Can 鯋 mean a goby?

Yes—in Japanese, it can name a goby.

Japanese dictionaries list two spoken readings: はぜ for a goby and さめ for a shark. Mandarin uses shā for the shark-related reading. The language and surrounding words decide which fish the writer means.