About
The character 鸪 (gū), with its traditional form 鴣, is a phono-semantic compound used specifically for certain game birds. It combines the phonetic element 古 (gǔ), meaning "ancient", with the semantic radical 鸟 (niǎo) or its traditional counterpart 鳥, which classifies it as a bird. This character is seldom used alone and appears almost exclusively in the compound 鹧鸪 (zhègū), the standard Chinese term for "partridge". Its structure follows a common pattern in Chinese bird names, pairing a phonetic component with the bird radical.
Etymology Hide
