Japanese names for shrimp, jellyfish and dolphins (海老 海月 海豚)

Some of the best kanji spellings in Japanese live in the sea. A shrimp is 海老 (ebi), “sea old man”. A jellyfish is 海月 (kurage), “sea moon”. And a dolphin is 海豚 (iruka), “sea pig”. All three start with 海, the sea, then add a picture: a bent old man with long whiskers, a pale moon floating in the water, a round-bodied pig.

These spellings are jukujikun (熟字訓): kanji chosen for what they mean, then read with a Japanese word that has nothing to do with their usual sounds. You can’t get ebi out of 海 and 老 by reading them one at a time; you just have to know the word.

海 (umi, kai) itself is the sea. The 氵 on its left is water, and 毎 on the right gives the sound.

海老, ebi: the old man of the sea

老 (rou, oiru) means old. It began as a picture of an old person with long hair, bent over a walking stick.

The spelling 海老 compares a shrimp’s curved back and long feelers to an old man’s bent back and long beard. The word ebi itself may be older than the spelling. In old Japanese, えび was also a name for the grapevine and its colour, and one common explanation is that shrimp were named after it: you can still read 葡萄色 as えびいろ (ebiiro), a deep maroon.

On menus you’ll often see 海老: 海老フライ (ebi furai) is breaded fried shrimp. Elsewhere it’s often written エビ.

海月, kurage: the moon in the sea

月 (tsuki, getsu) is the moon, and began as a drawing of a crescent moon.

Seen from above, a jellyfish is a pale, round disc drifting in the water, and that’s the picture behind 海月: it looks like the moon in the sea. Japanese also writes it 水母, “water mother”, and nobody is quite sure where that spelling comes from.

The word kurage is a mystery too. There are several theories. One links it to 暗い (kurai), dark, because a jellyfish seems to have no eyes; another to an old word for a round container. In practice it’s usually written in kana, クラゲ or くらげ.

海豚, iruka: the pig of the sea

豚 (buta, ton) is a pig. Its left side, 月, isn’t the moon this time: it’s the flesh radical, a squeezed form of 肉, meat. On the right is 豕, an old character for a pig, so 豚 shows a pig together with its meat.

Chinese writes dolphin the same way, 海豚 (hǎitún), and English had the same idea for the dolphin’s close relative: porpoise comes from Old French porpais, “pig fish”, from Latin porcus, pig. The Japanese word iruka is a puzzle of its own, with no agreed origin.

There’s a river pig, too: 河豚 (fugu) is the puffer fish. Most puffer fish live in the sea, but the spelling is said to come from a Chinese puffer fish that lives in rivers and grunts like a pig.

How to use them

• 海老フライが大好きです。

  Ebi furai ga daisuki desu.

  I love fried shrimp.

• 海でクラゲに刺された。

  Umi de kurage ni sasareta.

  I got stung by a jellyfish in the sea.

• 水族館でイルカのショーを見た。

  Suizokukan de iruka no shoo o mita.

  We watched the dolphin show at the aquarium.

• イルカが跳んでいる！

  Iruka ga tonde iru!

  The dolphins are jumping!

• Kana is normal in everyday writing. Dictionaries mark くらげ and いるか as usually written in kana, and in biology all three are normally written in katakana: クラゲ, イルカ, エビ. 海老 is the one you’ll still often see in kanji, especially on menus.
• One word for shrimp, prawn and lobster. 海老 covers all of them. The big spiny lobster is 伊勢海老 (ise ebi), “Ise shrimp”.
• Watch the 月. In 豚, and in body words like 腹 (hara), belly, and 胸 (mune), chest, 月 stands for flesh, not the moon.

Words with the same kanji

Remember it

Go down to the sea (海) and you’ll meet three neighbours: a bent old man (老) with long whiskers, the moon (月) bobbing in the waves, and a pig (豚) doing backflips. Shrimp, jellyfish, dolphin.

The kanji in this lesson

Tap Draw it to watch the stroke order. Numbers show where each stroke starts.

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Sources

• Wikipedia (Japanese): エビ
• Wikipedia (Japanese): クラゲ
• Wiktionary: 海豚
• Wikipedia (Japanese): フグ
• Etymonline: porpoise

Written by the Chirami team with the help of AI, then checked against JMdict and KANJIDIC2. How we write lessons. Spotted a mistake? Email support@brightsmilesolutions.org.