About
The character 獾 is a phono-semantic compound for the badger, a burrowing, nocturnal mammal. Its left side is the animal radical 犭, a variant of the dog radical used to classify wild beasts and carnivores. The right side is the component 雚, which provides the sound huān and originally depicted a bird. This structure places the badger within the zoological lexicon, and the character is often used in compounds like 獲 or 蜜獾 to specify different species, guided by its clear taxonomic radical.
Etymology Hide
