How to Write 鲙 (kuài) — Meaning “Minced fish or meat”

Imagine a fish (鱼) attending a meeting (会) where it gets chopped into tiny pieces. The meeting is a 'fish chopping party,' so the character means minced fish or meat. This visual story links the two parts to the meaning.

Pay attention to the right component 会: the top part is 人 (person) not 入, and the bottom is 云 (cloud) but with a horizontal stroke. Keep the left 鱼 slim and the right 会 balanced; a common mistake is making the right side too wide or mixing up the 人 and 入 strokes.

鲙 (kuài) means minced fish or meat, while 鱿 (yóu) means squid and has the right side 尤 (especially). 鲁 (lǔ) means dull or Shandong, and is written with 鱼 on top and 日 (sun) below, not side by side. Visually, 鲙 has a right side with 人 and 云, while the others have different components.

鲙 is a rare, classical character mostly found in food-related terms like 鱼鲙 (sliced raw fish) and 鲙肉 (minced meat). It is also used in the name of a traditional dish similar to sashimi, but in everyday modern Chinese it is much less common than simpler words for 'minced' or 'sliced fish.'

Common words containing 鲙 include: 鲙鱼 (kuài yú) — Minced fish; 鱼鲙 (yú kuài) — Sliced raw fish; 鲙肉 (kuài ròu) — Minced meat.