猫 · māo
cat
Meanings & readings
Meaning & readings
cat
- Mandarin
- māo
- Cantonese
- maau1
Unihan definitions and selected character readings. Read the word to establish its pronunciation in context.
Readings in Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese
Readings recorded for 猫 in other language traditions. These are character-level records, not word translations or interchangeable pronunciations.
Japanese 日本語
Grouped by the source’s kana notation; no frequency ranking is implied.
On’yomi · katakana
Kun’yomi · hiragana
Katakana generally indicates on’yomi; hiragana generally indicates kun’yomi. The source does not identify everyday, rare, historical or name use per reading. Kana strings are preserved, including any written endings; consult a Japanese word entry for actual use.
Go deeperJisho ↗Wiktionary ↗
Korean 한국어
Hanja readings · Hangul
Source codes are separated below. They are neither sounds nor tones; a character reading alone does not specify a whole word’s pronunciation.
Go deeperNaver Hanja ↗Wiktionary ↗
Reading sources explained
- 묘
- KS X 1001 (0) · Personal-name Hanja (N)
Vietnamese Tiếng Việt
Not recorded for this exact character in this dataset. This does not mean the language has no reading.
Form & structure
Writing & identity
- Unicode
- U+732B
- Radical
- 犬 · 94
- Strokes
- 11 · Unihan
- Residual
- 9
Source record · Unihan 17.0. Individual senses and historical claims have not yet been reviewed by zimai.
Stroke order
11 strokesModern stroke order; regional conventions can differ. Stroke medians: Make Me a Hanzi via HanziLookupJS, drawn as an even pen line.
Graphical structure
How to read these symbols
⿰ left–right · ⿱ above–below · ⿻ overlap. Dotted boxes indicate positions, not missing characters. Each symbol describes the components that follow it; nested symbols describe a component in more detail. Source codes identify alternative analyses, not a writing sequence or an etymology.
BabelStone IDS · 2025-06-27. Region tags are preserved; 〾 marks approximation and {n} identifies an unencoded source component. These describe graphical structure, not historical derivation.
Words & connections
Words using 猫
Character connections
No reverse component match in this collection.
History & distinctions
Related forms
Unihan traditional/simplified variant properties. Conversion may depend on context.
Historical readings
- Middle Chinese
- mjew · 武瀌 反切 · #675
Guangyun-based transcriptions · PHONO-ML · CC BY 4.0. These describe historical reading categories, not modern word pronunciation.
Source row & reading categories
CSV line 5478 · mjew = 效開三平宵明
Automatically generated in the source dataset; the authors checked a subset and acknowledge possible errors. All source readings are retained separately. Notation & method ↗
Sources & reference
Evidence & next depth
Retained Unihan properties
- kMandarin
- māo
- kCantonese
- maau1
- kDefinition
- cat
- kTotalStrokes
- 11
- kRSUnicode
- 94.9
- kTraditionalVariant
- U+732B U+8C93
- kSimplifiedVariant
- U+732B
- kTGH
- 2013:2367
Readings across dictionaries
- Hanyu Da Zidian
- māo,miáo,máo 21352.010
- Xiandai Hanyu · 1983
- māo 0766.010 · máo 0768.060
- Tongyong Guifan · 2013
- māo 244.040
- Reading counts · XDHYPLCD
- māo(62)