秋刀魚

See also: 秋刀鱼

Chinese

		autumn; fall; harvest time autumn; fall; harvest time; a swing	knife	fish
trad. (秋刀魚)		秋	刀	魚
simp. (秋刀鱼)		秋	刀	鱼

Pronunciation

• Mandarin

  (Pinyin): qiūdāoyú

  (Zhuyin): ㄑㄧㄡ ㄉㄠ ㄩˊ

• Cantonese (Jyutping): cau¹ dou¹ jyu^4-2
• Southern Min (Teochew, Peng'im): ciu¹ do¹ he⁵

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• Mandarin
  • (Standard Chinese)⁺
    • Hanyu Pinyin: qiūdāoyú
    • Zhuyin: ㄑㄧㄡ ㄉㄠ ㄩˊ
    • Tongyong Pinyin: cioudaoyú
    • Wade–Giles: chʻiu¹-tao¹-yü²
    • Yale: chyōu-dāu-yú
    • Gwoyeu Romatzyh: chioudauyu
    • Palladius: цюдаоюй (cjudaojuj)
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /t͡ɕʰi̯oʊ̯⁵⁵ tɑʊ̯⁵⁵ y³⁵/
• Cantonese
  • (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)⁺
    • Jyutping: cau¹ dou¹ jyu^4-2
    • Yale: chāu dōu yú
    • Cantonese Pinyin: tsau¹ dou¹ jy^4-2
    • Guangdong Romanization: ceo¹ dou¹ yu^4-2
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /t͡sʰɐu̯⁵⁵ tou̯⁵⁵ jyː²¹⁻³⁵/
• Southern Min
  • (Teochew)
    • Peng'im: ciu¹ do¹ he⁵
    • Pe̍h-ōe-jī-like: tshiu to hṳ̂
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /t͡sʰiu³³⁻²³ to³³⁻²³ hɯ⁵⁵/

Noun

(deprecated template usage) 秋刀魚

1. Pacific saury ()

(deprecated template usage)

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Japanese

秋刀魚 (sanma): a Pacific saury, also called a mackerel pike.

Kanji in this term
秋	刀	魚
Grade: 2	Grade: 2	Grade: 2
irregular

Alternative forms

• 三馬 (dated, rare)

Etymology

Uncertain.

• Theorized as alteration from earlier compound 狭 (sa, “narrow”, in reference to the slender body of the fish) + 真魚 (mana, “edible fish”). /samana/ → /samuma/ → /samma/

• An alternative derivation suggests 狭間 (sama, “narrow space”) + 魚 (na, “fish”, ancient term, and part of the roots of modern reading sakana), where ma again references the narrowness of the fish's body, but this is problematic, as 間 (ma) can only refer to the space between things, not the width of a thing itself.

• Another possibility is that sanma is cognate with 鯖 (saba, “mackerel”). The two kinds of fish are somewhat similar, and sanma is even called mackerel pike in English. In addition, the voiced plosive /b/ sound in modern Japanese appears to have been pre-nasalized in Old Japanese as something closer to /mb/, and there is evidence of /b/ ⇔ /m/ alternation in various terms in Japanese. There is also Ainu サㇺバ (samba, “mackerel”), likely a borrowing either into or from Japanese. This suggests that modern sanma may have arisen as an /m/ ⇔ /b/ alteration of older sanba.

The 秋刀魚 spelling likely arose quite recently in 1922 during the Taisho period, when a popular poem by Haruo Satō used this spelling. This is ateji (当て字), in reference to the fish's harvest season of autumn (秋) and its blade-shaped body (刀). Another ateji spelling found starting from the Edo period is 三馬, which would likely be read as either sanma or sanba.

Noun

秋刀魚(さんま) or 秋刀魚(サンマ) • (sanma) 

1. Cololabis saira: Pacific saury, mackerel pike

Usage notes

As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana, especially in biological contexts (where katakana is customary), as サンマ.

Synonyms

• さいら (saira)

Further reading

• Etymology entry for 秋刀魚 at Japan Dictionary (in Japanese): http://www.nihonjiten.com/data/45619.html
• Etymology entry for 秋刀魚 at Gogen Jiten (Etymology Dictionary; in Japanese): http://gogen-allguide.com/sa/sanma.html