Chinese

Alternative forms

• 慈菇 (cígū), 茨菰 (cígū)

Noun

慈姑

1. (botany) the arrowhead plant, Sagittaria sagittifolia

References

• ABC Chinese-English Dictionary, John DeFrancis, 1997, page 94
• The Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary, Jingrong Wu, 1979, page 111
• Lin Yutang, page 1071

Japanese

慈姑 (kuwai): the arrowhead plant.

Etymology

Unknown. One theory suggests that this is an alteration from 川芋 (kawa imo, “river tuber”), but the old kana spelling of くわゐ ‎(kuwawi) for 慈姑 does not match the old kana spelling of かはうも ‎(kafaumo) for 川芋. This is more likely a compound of 鍬 ‎(kuwa, “plow”), from the shape of the leaves, plus an unknown element ゐ (wi).

The kanji are ateji, borrowed from the Chinese name for this plant.

Pronunciation

• (Irregular reading)
• (Tokyo) くわい [kùwáí] (Heiban - [0])^[1][2]
• IPA^(key): [kɯᵝɰᵝa̠i]

Noun

慈姑 ‎(hiragana くわい, katakana クワイ, romaji kuwai, historical hiragana くわゐ)

1. (botany) the arrowhead plant, Sagittaria trifolia var. edulis, cultivated since ancient times for its edible bulb

Usage notes

As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana in biological contexts, as クワイ.

References

1. ↑ 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, ISBN 4-385-13905-9
2. ↑ 1998, NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 (NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: NHK, ISBN 978-4-14-011112-3