百足

百足

1. (poetic or Cantonese and Pinghua) centipede
2. (poetic) diplopod

• (centipede):

From Old Japanese, of unknown derivation; some theories include:

1. a compound of 向かい (mukai, “facing”, the 連用形 (ren'yōkei, “continuative or stem form”) of verb 向かう (mukau, “to face”)) +‎ 手 (te, “hand”), as the centipede's feet come in facing pairs
2. a compound of 六 (mu, “six”) +‎ 十 (ka, “ten”, unusual reading; compare the ga in 五十嵐 (igarashi)) +‎ 手 (te, “hand”), literally "sixty hands"; centipedes have more or less than one hundred legs
3. starting as a compound of 百 (momo, “hundred”) +‎ が (ga, ancient possessive particle) +‎ 手 (te, “hand”), shifting phonetically: /momo ɡa te/ → /mukade/

While the latter two theories seem plausible semantically, the devoicing of ga to ka is quite unusual.

The kanji are jukujikun (熟字訓), from Chinese 百足.

• (Irregular reading)
  • (Tokyo) むかで [mùkádé] (Heiban – [0])[1][2][3]
  • IPA^(key): [mɯ̟ᵝka̠de̞]

• 蜈蚣, 蜈蜙, 蝍蛆

百足 (hiragana むかで, katakana ムカデ, rōmaji mukade) (standard)
(alternative reading hiragana むかぜ, romaji mukaze) (Kagoshima dialect)

1. a centipede

As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana, especially in biological contexts, as ムカデ.

From Middle Chinese 百足 (MC pˠæk̚ t͡sɨok̚).

• On’yomi: Goon
  • (Tokyo) ひゃくそく [hyàkúsókú] (Heiban – [0])[1]
  • IPA^(key): [ça̠kɯ̟ᵝso̞kɯ̟ᵝ]

百足 (hiragana ひゃくそく, rōmaji hyakusoku)

1. (rare) a centipede

The mukade reading is much more common.

• 馬陸 (やすで) (yasude, “a millipede”)

• Etymology at Gogen-Allguide (in Japanese)
• Etymology at Nihon Jiten (in Japanese)

• 蜈蚣

百足 (hiragana んかじ, romaji nkaji)

1. a centipede

• 蜈蚣

百足 (hiragana むかじ, romaji mukaji)

1. a centipede

• 蜈蚣

百足 (hiragana ぬかで, romaji nukade)

1. a centipede