About
The character 鲥 is a phono-semantic compound. Its semantic radical 鱼 (yú, fish) indicates the category, while the phonetic component 时 (shí, time/season) suggests the pronunciation. This corresponds to the traditional form 鰣, composed of 魚 and 時. The name originates from the Reeves' shad, a fish that migrates upstream to spawn at a predictable time each early summer. Thus, the combination of "fish" and "time" captures this species' defining seasonal behavior. The character 鲥 refers specifically to this historically and commercially significant shad in Chinese contexts.