猹

Glyph origin
.

Etymology
in his short story, “”. According to him, the sound component, was similar to how the countryfolks said the animal's name.

Whilst most modern sources identify the animal as a badger or a badger-like animal, proposes that the animal might actually have been a  - the word ultimately coming from  in some variety of non-urban  (likely what would have been spoken by the real-life inspiration for the character, who tells young  about the animal).

This would have later been corrupted to in 's own Urban, and eventually likened to Standard Mandarin.

Definitions

 * 1) A species of unidentified wild animal mentioned in 's “”, potentially a badger or water deer.

Usage notes
Earlier dictionary attestations listed the character under the pronunciation - the earliest being the first edition of the, chief edited by the lexicographer and linguist Wei Jiangong.

However, the 1973 had changed the character's pronunciation to, homophonic to the more common reading of  in Standard Mandarin. The first Pronunciation Lookup Table for Putonghua Words with Alternate Pronunciations, published in 1985, has similarly prescribed in favour of. Most later sources have adhered to this and given the character's pronunciation as since then.