About
The character 鳏, whose traditional form is 鰥, combines the fish radical with the component 眔 on the right. Etymologically, it originally denoted a type of fish imagined to be solitary or elusive, a concept that metaphorically extended to refer to a widower, a man living alone after the loss of his wife. The component 眔, associated with weeping, contributed to this semantic shift toward bereavement. Over time, the direct reference to the fish diminished, and the character's meaning specialized exclusively to indicate a widower, while its graphical structure remained consistent in using these two components.
Etymology Hide
