Origin

The kanji 鶏 combines two parts to represent a chicken. On the right is 鳥, which means bird and acts as a classifier showing this character belongs to the bird family. On the left is 奚, which serves as a sound hint and tells you roughly how the character is pronounced (similar to "kei"). By pairing a bird classifier with a sound component, the character conveys both what the word means—a specific type of bird, the chicken—and how it sounds when spoken.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).