Subgroup 虎 (hǔ) - Extension to Group: 虍 (hū)
henning
July 15, 2008, 06:02 AM posted in General Discussion
Motivated by "Group 虍"
虎
Pron: hǔ, hù
Main radical: 虍
Frequency: 1083
Meaning: tiger, brave, fierce
Examples: 老虎 (tiger), 马虎 (careless), 马马虎虎 (so-so), 老虎机 (one-arm bandit)
虝
Pron: hǔ
Main radical: 虍
Frequency: 9515
Meaning: (old) tiger
俿
Pron: hǔ, jiàn
Main radical: 亻
Frequency: rare
Meaning: wheel
淲
Pron: piáo, biāo
Main radical: 氵
Frequency: rare
Meaning: (old for bank of a river)
鯱
Pron: xìɑ, qī, hō, kō
Main radical: 魚
Frequency: rare
Meaning: mythical dolphin-like fish
萀
Pron: hǔ
Main radical: 艹
Frequency: rare
Meaning: (old for some sort of grass and for some sort of bean)
箎
Pron: chí
Main radical: 竹
Frequency: rare
Meaning: (old for a certain ancient wooden flute with 8 holes)
henning
July 15, 2008, 11:30 AMHi changye,
thanks for the additional piece of info.
Actually those rare (red) characters have more a collector's value for me, I don't think learning them would be very useful. But it is somehow fun to delve into them anyways...
changye
July 15, 2008, 09:44 AMHi henning,
鯱 (a killer whale) is a Japan-made Chinese character, which is called 国字 in Japan, and therefore you cannot find it even in 康熙字典. There are a lot of Japan-original characters, especially with a radical "魚 ", such as 鯛 (sea bream) and 鱈 (cod, or 大头鱼), which is naturally because of Japanese people's love for fish.
Interestingly, 鱈 has already accepted as a valid Chinese character in China, and so it is honorably listed in 新华字典. Those foreign-made characters （mainly made in Korean, Vietnam, and Japan） are all shown in 中华字海 that lists the largest number of Chinese characters in the world at present. I'm dying for the dictionary!