クルミの日本語 exploring Japanese

虫 in Kanji and Compounds

Today, we'll look at a simpler kanji representing "insect" that appears in some non-insect compounds, and even as a radical in some non-insect kanji.

At a Glance (details at jisho.org)
Meaning Bug, insect, temper
Vocabulary 昆虫 (insect), 虹 (rainbow), ...
Similar 中 (center, inside); 蛍 (firefly)
Variants 蟲 (rare)
To Remember contains but not as radical: 風, 強

虫 originally represented a venomous, coiled snake; the historical forms of the character make that more apparent. The tripled character 蟲 represented worms and insect-like creatures.

In time, 虫 took the meaning of insects and similar creepy-crawlies, and 虺 stepped in to represent snakes. In Japanese, 虺 is very rare, and へび is a 常用じょうよう character meaning "snake".

What sorts of things (animals and otherwise) have a bug-like nature?

Bats and Bugs

On Nov. 3, 1989, the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip featured Calvin delivering an oral report to his first-grade class about bats. After he described bats as "unspeakable giant bugs", the entire class retorted: "BATS AREN'T BUGS!"

This is true: mammals and insects are very different animals. On a hunch, however, I looked up the Japanese word for "bat", since the 虫 radical does appear in some non-arthropod characters, and sure enough, it's there, twice:

蝙蝠こうもり
Bat (Chiroptera)

In the jisho.org entries, these two kanji always appear together. Both mean "bat", and both are Hyougai kanji (表外漢字ひょうがいかんじ), less common kanji which belong neither to the 常用じょうよう list (everyday use) or the 人名用じんめいよう list (approved for personal names).

Only the former (蝙) has the full "こうもり" 訓読くんよみ reading that is used also for the compound. Only the latter (蝠) has historical forms listed (bone script, seal script, etc.)

ちゅうしょく = eating bugs?

虫 (むし, チュウ) itself is a 常用じょうよう kanji, and appears in several compounds. Here are a few:

単語たんご 意味いみ 例えたと / コメント
むし Bug; insect; cricket; moth; worm 鳥は虫を探していた. The bird was looking for worms.
昆虫こんちゅう Bug, insect 昆虫, a more formal word, means more strictly "insect" (member of arthropod > hexapod) while 虫 alone includes more creepy-crawlies such as centipedes, spiders, etc.
益虫えきちゅう Useful insect 益 (benefit, profit) also guest stars in some kaomoji
虫歯むしば cavity, decayed tooth "Bug tooth" is quite a vivid image.
弱虫よわむし coward, weakling "weak bug"
水虫みずむし Athlete's foot; or water boatman (type of waterbug)
むし Crybaby "crying bug"

虫 tends to appear in names of insects, allude to certain afflictions, and describe some unfavorable personality traits. This is not so far from English ("caught a flu bug"; "buzz off"; "stop bugging me"). Let's look at some kanji where 虫 appears as a radical or component.

単語たんご 意味いみ 例えたと / コメント
しらみ Lice; vermin Merits its own kanji
Mosquito Spanish for "little fly" (mosca + ito)
はち Bee, wasp, hornet 蜂蜜はちみつ, "honey", usually written as hiragana
Centipede, grasshopper though centipede, 百足むかで, is usually written using kana alone
かぜ Wind; style The radical is not 虫, but 風 itself. But the bug is there.
にじ Rainbow My favorite type of insect. More on this later
さわ To make noise Mnemonic: "Again with the horse and the bug!"
むし Insect, bug, temper Rare; certainly less questionable than 姦
むし rice worm; lead astray 3 bugs on a plate; featured in 蠱惑こわく (glamour, enchantment, seduction)
蚯蚓蜥蜴みみずとかげ worm lizard, amphisbaenian usually written using kana alone, unfortunately; 4 kanji all using the 虫 radical
蝌蚪かと tadpole also refers to an ancient seal-script character

The readings of 虫 lend themselves to some bad puns. A ゴキブリ (cockroach) might answer the phone with "虫虫むしむし" instead of "もしもし". And Klendathu, the "bug planet" from Starship Troopers, could be represented as 虫国ちゅうごく, at the risk of insulting over a billion people. We'll stop before these get really bad.

In Rainbows

How does にじ arise from 虫? It's not borrowing a on reading (as many kanji do from a component); 虫 is the radical. The Wiktionary page sheds a little light on the etymology of these words.

A rainbow's components are 虫 (bug; originally snake) and 工 (construction); the most plausible explanation I found of its origins are that a rainbow curves like a snake or worm, and 工 (in some flavors of Chinese) contributes to the sound of 虹.

I'd like to find out more about this, but I'll need to learn more Japanese (and Chinese) to expand the set of sources I can find.

One parting thought: 独 (alone, single, bachelor) includes 虫 and the "dog" radical (犭), and also represents Germany: 独逸ドイツ. Thanks for reading!

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