Chinese

Noun

鮟鱇

1. anglerfish; monkfish

Synonyms

• 琵琶魚／琵琶鱼
• 老頭魚／老头鱼

Japanese

鮟鱇 (ankō): an anglerfish, a goosefish, a monkfish.

Etymology

/angoː/ → /ankoː/

Unknown.

Various theories of the origin of あんこう ‎(ankō) exist, such as from あんぐり ‎(anguri) or あぐり ‎(aguri, “agape, with one's mouth wide open”),^[1][2] perhaps related to Korean 아귀 ‎(agwi, “anglerfish”). The kanji spelling is an Edo-period coinage, found for example in the 1709 biology text 大和本草 (Yamato Honzō, “Japanese Biology”), formed from earlier ateji (当て字) 安康 ‎(ankō) by adding the 魚 ‎(“fish”) radical to each of the ateji characters. The current 鮟鱇 form has replaced the earlier 安康 form.

Pronunciation

• On'yomi
• (Tokyo) あ​んこう [áꜜǹkòò] (Atamadaka - [1])^[3][4][5]
• (Tokyo) あんこ​う [àńkóꜜò] (Nakadaka - [3])^[5]
• IPA^(key): [ã̠ŋko̞ː]

Noun

鮟鱇 ‎(hiragana あんこう, katakana アンコウ, romaji ankō, historical hiragana あんかう)

1. an anglerfish, a monkfish, a goosefish

Usage notes

As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana in biological contexts, as アンコウ.

References

1. ↑ フリーランス雑学ライダーズ編『あて字のおもしろ雑学』 p.47 1988年 永岡書店
2. ↑ アンコウ: 語源, Japanese Wikipedia
3. ↑ 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, ISBN 4-385-13905-9
4. ↑ 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
5. 1 2 1997, 新明解国語辞典 (Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten), Fifth Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, ISBN 4-385-13143-0

Korean

Noun

鮟鱇 • ‎(an-gang, McCune-Reischauer: an'gang, Yale: ankang) ‎(hangeul 안강)

1. Hanja form^? of 안강, “anglerfish; monkfish”.

Synonyms

• 아귀 ‎(agwi)