Shī character

鳲 chiefly writes the first half of 鳲鳩, a classical bird-name.

In Mandarin, it begins with a tongue-curled “sh”-like sound and a high, steady tone; English has no exact equivalent. The earliest secure literary trail is the Book of Odes, around the sixth century BCE: the poem 《鳲鳩》 in its Cao section opens with the bird in a mulberry tree.

Classical glosses connect 鳲鳩 with 布穀, a name for the cuckoo also rendered “grain-sowing bird.” 鳲 writes only the compound’s first half, not a general word for bird. A 2024 Taiwan Ministry of Education dictionary entry notes that 鳲 is not recorded in Shuowen, an early Chinese character dictionary.

Why does 鳲 appear in old poetry?

In the Odes, the bird becomes a model of even-handed care.

The poem moves from 鳲鳩 with seven young to the good ruler whose conduct and judgment stay steady. Its traditional preface reads the poem as criticism of office-holders who lack that steadiness. The moral echo belongs to the bird in the poem, while 鳲 still points to the compound.

Later Chinese sources keep 布穀 and 杜鵑 within cuckoo traditions. 戴勝 properly names the hoopoe, though older glosses sometimes brought it into the debate. A 1998 comparative study notes that some European cuckoo traditions associate the bird with infidelity; the Chinese poem instead makes it a model of virtue. These are readings of the bird, not extra meanings of 鳲.