Definitions
old variant of 蜘[zhī]
Etymology
About
鼅, a phono-semantic compound, is the old orthographic form of modern 蜘 and the first character in the archaic disyllabic word for spider (鼅鼄). Its lower element, the radical 黽 (mǐn), originally covered amphibians and small crawling creatures, before standardization replaced it with the insect radical (虫) for arthropods. The upper element, 知 (zhī), serves as the phonetic and carries no semantic weight from its meaning 'knowledge.' The character appears almost exclusively in classical texts paired with 鼄, reflecting an early taxonomy reliant on the 黽 radical.
Report an issue
Flag incorrect definitions, examples, etymology, etc.