鲶 meaning and stroke order
Catfish; sheat
How to write 鲶, stroke by stroke
16 strokes in order. Each box adds the next stroke in red. Write top to bottom and left to right, and finish enclosing strokes last.
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Meaning of 鲶
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- sheatfish (Parasilurus asotus)
- oriental catfish
- see also 鮎|鲇[nian2]
How 鲶 is built
Phono-semantic (sound + meaning) character. Fish.
鱼 gives the meaning and 念 hints at the sound.
Radical: 鱼 (fish), shared by 79 characters on this site.
How to remember 鲶
The fish radical 鱼 (yú) on the left tells you it is a fish, and 念 (niàn) on the right gives the sound. Picture a catfish lying still on the riverbed, deep in thought (念 means to think of), with its long whiskers drooping.
鲶 almost always appears in the word 鲶鱼 (niányú), the everyday name for catfish in markets, restaurants, and fishing talk. Example: 这条河里有很多鲶鱼。(Zhè tiáo hé lǐ yǒu hěn duō niányú.) There are a lot of catfish in this river.
Common mistake: Learners often read 鲶 as niàn because of its phonetic part 念, but the character is second tone, nián. Also do not confuse it with 鲸 (jīng, whale), which has the same fish radical on the left.
Common words with 鲶
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 鲶鱼 | niányú | catfish |
Questions about 鲶
How many strokes are in 鲶?
鲶 is written with 16 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 鲶 mean?
鲶 (nián) means catfish; sheat. A common word with it is 鲶鱼 (niányú), meaning "catfish".
How do you pronounce 鲶?
鲶 is pronounced nián, in the second tone (rising).
What is the radical of 鲶?
The radical of 鲶 is 鱼, which carries the idea of "fish". Dictionaries list 鲶 under this radical.
What is the traditional form of 鲶?
The traditional form of 鲶 is 鯰. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau; 鲶 is the simplified form used in mainland China and Singapore.
What is the difference between 鲶 and 鲇?
They are variant forms of the same character, both read nián and both meaning catfish. 鲶 is the more common choice in everyday writing, while 鲇 shows up in dictionaries and some formal or scientific texts.
Can I say 鲶 by itself to mean catfish?
In normal speech people say 鲶鱼 (niányú) rather than 鲶 alone. The single character mostly appears inside compounds or in written lists of fish names.