鯰

鯰 (radical 195, 魚+8, 19 strokes, cangjie input 弓火人戈心 (NFOIP), four-corner 2833₂, composition ⿰魚念)

• KangXi: not present, would follow page 1473, character 27
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 46285
• Dae Jaweon: page 2005, character 27
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 7, page 4697, character 13
• Unihan data for U+9BF0

Commonly used for the catfish sense in written Chinese, due to the rarity usage of 鮎 (nián).

A 国字 (kokuji, “Japanese-coined character”),[1] using the 魚 radical on the left for its meaning of “fish”, and 念 on the right for its phonetic value as a homophone of 粘 (nen, “sticky; slimy”).

(uncommon “Hyōgai” kanji)

1. a catfish

• Kan’yō-on: ねん (nen)^{←ねん (nen, historical)←ねむ (nemu, ancient)}
• Kun: なまず (namazu, 鯰)^{←なまづ (namadu, historical)}

鯰 (namazu): a biologist's depiction of a Amur catfish (Japanese catfish).

Possibly from 滑 (nama, “slippery, slimy”, possible ancient alternate for name reading) +‎ 頭 (zu, “head”).

• Kun’yomi
  • (Tokyo) なまず [nàmázú] (Heiban – [0])[2][3][4]
  • IPA^(key): [na̠ma̠zɨᵝ]

鯰 (hiragana なまず, katakana ナマズ, rōmaji namazu, historical hiragana なまづ)

1. an Amur catfish (Silurus asotus)

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