The Calligrapher — Sū Shì 苏轼

Song literatus whose spontaneous running script shaped the literati ideal.

Song calligrapher (1037–1101), master of running script/regular script — Song poet-statesman and polymath whose expressive running script made personality, not rules, the point. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

鳏 joins 鱼 with a phonetic and is glossed in the 《説文解字》 as both a fish and, by extension, a man who lives alone. The lonely 鳏 fish became the image of the widower with no partner at his side.

Common words & phrases

• 鳏夫 widower
• 鳏寡 widowers and widows
• 鳏居 live as a widower

Read the story behind the character

鳏 means widower: 鳏夫 a man who has lost his wife, 鳏寡 widowers and widows together, and 鳏居 to live on as a widower. Welfare forms and obituaries use it. The character carries quiet solitude—the fish swimming by itself to the end.