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

貉 is a phono-semantic compound identifying the raccoon dog, a canid native to East Asia. The left component, the radical 豸, categorizes it among predatory beasts and long-backed mammals, providing its semantic class. The right component, 各, supplies the pronunciation. Beyond zoology, the character appears in the idiom 一丘之貉 ("raccoon dogs of the same hill"), metaphorically describing people of similarly bad character.