I've come across a kanji which is a combination of 虫 on the left and 巤 on the right. I've tried to do a bunch of radical searches (jisho.org, tangorin.com) to no avail. Which leads me to suspect it's somewhat rare. Does anyone know the reading and meaning or where I might be able to find them?

Thanks!

Edit: the source is a dead-tree book so I can't just copy and paste unfortunately.

蠟
蝋（簡易慣用字体）、蜡（簡体字）
ろう - wax (edict)

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%9D%8B
http://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A0%9F

From my 5 minute lookup, 蝋 is the one used these days. 蠟 is old, and 蜡 is the simplified chinese version.

Cheers

If you don't mind my asking, how do you go about finding something like that?

It's in my 漢和辞典. (A kanwa jiten is a very useful thing to have if you're reading anything where rare kanji may crop up). The reading is ろう　and it seems to be an older form of 蝋.

The full dictionary entry:

蠟１。ろう。
(イ)みつろう。ミツバチの巣からとる脂肪質のもの。＊黄蠟
(ロ)はぜろう。ハゼの実からとる脂肪質のもの　＊白蠟
２。ろうそく　*蠟灯
３。ろうのような淡黄色　＊蠟梅
４。ろうをぬる。ろうをひく。

That's odd. It's -in- KANJIDIC but can't be found by radicals in jisho.org. It's there though once you have the character, http://jisho.org/kanji/details/%E8%A0%9F
(of course, it doesn't have 'parts' listed - but I would have expected it to show up under its radical).

Not having a 漢和 dictionary, if I got stuck in such a position I would use an IME with handwriting recognition to input the character. (iPhone, Baidu, ATOK ... or in a desperate case, there are some websites out there that do handwriting recognition kanji lookups. Google-IME's handwriting recognition is not worth the trouble of opening, btw.)

It’s coming up on tangorin as the 24th kanji under the bug radical for me but you’re right, jisho isn’t showing it.

egovkd Wrote:If you don't mind my asking, how do you go about finding something like that?

In all my years of spelunking the interconnected web of networks in search of information, I have been fine tuning my information seeking abilities.

This was my thought process:
1. This is probably an old kanji that isn't used anymore. Therefore, it must have been simplified.
2. In order to find the simplified version of it, what would 巤 have turned into?
3. Google: 巤
4. Top hit: http://www.geocities.jp/iwa_kaz/kantaijiXV.htm
5. Ctrl-F "巤"
6. Find "蠟（蝋）" in the text. Now I can copy/paste the character and do whatever I want with it.

And actually because of the continuing confusion over whether non-Joyo kanji should be simplified or not, seeing 蠟燭 is not all that uncommon. (If it were up to me they'd just stick to ロウソク but nobody asks me )

yudantaiteki Wrote:And actually because of the continuing confusion over whether non-Joyo kanji should be simplified or not, seeing 蠟燭 is not all that uncommon. (If it were up to me they'd just stick to ロウソク but nobody asks me )

What? Not a fan of non-Joyo kanji?

I'm not really a fan of kanji in general.

Heresy!

egovkd Wrote:Cheers

If you don't mind my asking, how do you go about finding something like that?

If you're using Windows, you can always just draw it on the IME pad.