鼠

Stroke order

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Radical 208 鼠

鼠 (Kangxi radical 208, 鼠+0, 13 strokes, cangjie input 竹難女卜女 (HXVYV), four-corner 7771₇, composition ⿱臼⿲⿺𠄌⺀⿺𠄌⺀㇂(GJK) or ⿱臼⿲⿺𠄌𠄠⿺𠄌𠄠㇂(HT))

1. Kangxi radical #208, ⿏.

• Appendix:Chinese radical/鼠
• 𠏙, 𤢡, 𣜌, 𦡔, 𥣅, 𧒑, 𨭿, 竄, 𩯡, 癙

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 1527, character 14
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 48390
• Dae Jaweon: page 2063, character 23
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 7, page 4772, character 1
• Unihan data for U+9F20

Historical forms of the character 鼠
Shang	Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Oracle bone script	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

Pictogram (象形) – a mouse or rat. In the seal script form, which is inherited in the regular script, the upper component resembling 臼 (jiù) represents the open mouth of a rat with teeth displayed, and the lower component represents the two feet of a rat on the left and a tail on the right.

Unclear. Schuessler (2007) reconstructs the Minimal Old Chinese as *nhaʔ (homophonous to 癙 (OC *nhaʔ) "painful, suffering", which is in the same phonetic series and may be related to Proto-Tibeto-Burman *na (“ill, pain, sore, ache, difficult, evil spirit”)) and compares to the following:

• Nyah Kur (hnáaʔ, “small squirrel; tree shrew”);
• Proto-Mon-Khmer *kn₁(i)ʔ (“rat; mouse”): Old Mon kni' > Mon ဂၞိ (nɔeˀ), Proto-Bahnaric *knɛː;
• Proto-Kam-Sui *hnu³ (“rat”): Southern Kam not, Sui hnoc.

STEDT, on the other hand, compares 鼠 (OC *hljaʔ) to Proto-Sino-Tibetan *b-jəw-n (“rat; rabbit; hare”).

鼠

1. rat; mouse; any member of the superfamily Muroidea, rodent

   老鼠  ―  lǎoshǔ  ―  mouse, rat

2. Rat (first of the Chinese zodiac signs)

   我屬鼠。／我属鼠。  ―  Wǒ shǔ shǔ.  ―  My zodiac sign is the Rat.

3. (traditional Chinese medicine) scrofula; scrofulous
4. (Cantonese) to sneak; to go stealthily

   佢鼠走咗。   ―  keoi⁵ syu² zau² zo².   ―  He sneaked away.

• (Chinese zodiac signs) (~年) 鼠 (shǔ), 牛 (niú), 虎 (hǔ), 兔 (tù), 龍／龙 (lóng), 蛇 (shé), 馬／马 (mǎ), 羊 (yáng), 猴 (hóu), 雞／鸡 (jī), 狗 (gǒu), 豬／猪 (zhū) ^{(Category: zh:Chinese zodiac signs)}

• “鼠”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎, 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–
• 李如龙 , 刘福铸 , 吴华英 , 黄国城 (2019) “鼠”, in 莆仙方言调查报告 (overall work in Mandarin and Puxian Min), Xiamen University Press, →ISBN, page 140.

(Hyōgai kanji, kyūjitai kanji, shinjitai form 鼡)

1. mouse, rat, other similar rodent

• Go-on: しょ (sho)^{←しよ (syo, historical)}
• Kan-on: しょ (sho)^{←しよ (syo, historical)}
• Kan’yō-on: そ (so)
• Kun: ねずみ (nezumi, 鼠)、ねず (nezu, 鼠)、ね (ne, 鼠)

Japanese Wikipedia has an article on:

ネズミ

Wikipedia ^ja

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Mouse

Wikipedia

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Rat

Wikipedia

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Muroidea

Wikipedia

	鼠 (nezumi) → 鼠色 (nezumi-iro, literally “mouse color”): the color grey.

Originally a compound of 根 (ne, “root”, more specifically signifying somewhere hidden away) +‎ 住み (sumi, the 連用形 (ren'yōkei, “continuative or stem form”) of verb 住む sumu, “to live in a place, to reside”), meaning roughly “one who lives in hidden places”. (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?) The sumi changes to zumi as an instance of rendaku (連濁).

• (Tokyo) ねずみ (Heiban – )
• IPA^(key):

鼠(ねずみ) or 鼠(ネズミ) • (nezumi) 

1. a mouse or a rat

   Synonym: (Kagoshima) ねずん (nezun)

   • 1993 November 15 , “○動(どう)物(ぶつ)のお医(い)者(しゃ)さん　登(とう)場(じょう)人(じん)物(ぶつ)紹(しょう)介(かい) ”, in 動物のお医者さん , 44th edition, volume 2 (fiction), Tokyo: Hakusensha, →ISBN, page 7:

     二(に)階(かい)堂(どう)：ハムテルの友(ゆう)人(じん)で獣(じゅう)医(い)の卵(たまご)。だがネズミに弱(よわ)いという弱(じゃく)点(てん)がある。

     Nikaidō: Hamuteru no yūjin de jūi no tamago. Daga nezumi ni yowai to iu jakuten ga aru.

     Nikaidō: Hamuteru’s friend, who’s also a future veterinarian. One of his weaknesses, however, is being frightened of rats and mice.

   • 1999 May 25, “イビル・ラット ”, in Booster 2, Konami:

     どんな物(もの)にでもかじりつく、行(ぎょう)儀(ぎ)の悪(わる)い野(の)ネズミ。

     Donna mono ni demo kajiritsuku, gyōgi no warui nonezumi.

     A feral rat evil-doer that can bite through anything.

   • 1999 September 23, “鎧(よろい)ネズミ ”, in Vol.5, Konami:

     鎧(よろい)のようにかたい毛(け)で体(からだ)を守(まも)ることができるネズミ。

     Yoroi no yō ni katai ke de karada o mamoru koto ga dekiru nezumi.

     A rat capable of defending itself with a coat that functions as armor.

   • 2007 November 20 , Fujiko F. Fujio, “「スパルタ式(しき)にが手(て)こくふく錠(じょう)」と「にが手(て)タッチバトン」 ”, in ドラえもん＋(プラス) , 4th edition, volume 5 (fiction), Tokyo: Shogakukan, →ISBN, pages 11–12:

     ごめんください。

     Gomen kudasai.

     May I come in?

     ネズミ年(どし)の人(ひと)ですか？

     Nezumidoshi no hito desu ka?

     Were you born in a Rat year?

     サル年(どし)ですが。

     Sarudoshi desu ga.

     I was born in a Monkey year.

     じゃ　おはいりください。

     Ja ohairi kudasai.

     Please come in then.

     わたくし、根(ね)住(ずみ)ともうします。

     Watakushi, Nezumi to mōshimasu.

     But my name is Nezumi.

2. general term for members of superfamily Muroidea, including mice, rats, voles, hamsters, gerbils, and other similar rodents
3. short for 鼠色 (nezumi iro): the colour grey, sometimes more specifically a dark grey colour

• Japanese does not generally distinguish between mice and rats, and both are commonly called nezumi. If a distinction is needed, speakers may use the adjectives 大きい (ōkii, “large”) or 小さい (chīsai, “small”), or may use the word マウス (mausu, “mouse”, borrowed from either German or English).
• This term is often spelled in kana.
• As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana, especially in biological contexts (where katakana is customary), as ネズミ.
• Note that, although the Japanese term 子年 (​nezumidoshi, ​nedoshi) for The Year of the Rat in the Chinese zodiac does derive from this same nezumi term, it is not written with this 鼠 kanji.