貉

hé, mò

各 + 豸

Definitions

hé raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides); raccoon of North China, Korea and Japan (Japanese: tanuki); also pr. [háo]

mò old term for northern peoples; silent

Etymology

Phonosemantic compound. 豸 represents the meaning and 各 represents the sound.

Semantic: 豸 Phonetic: 各

About

The character 貉 designates the raccoon dog, an East Asian canid prized for its thick fur. It is formed as a phono-semantic compound, pairing the radical 豸, which classifies wild animals (predatory beasts and long-backed mammals), with the phonetic 各. The character is famously used in the idiom 一丘之貉 (literally "raccoon dogs of the same hill"), equivalent to "birds of a feather flock together", applied to people of the same low character, thus extending its usage from zoology to moral critique.