龘

A compound of three identical 龍 (dragon) characters placed together, each 16 strokes, yielding a character of 48 strokes in total.

The tripling of 龍 visually enacts the sense of a dragon's grand, sweeping movement — magnitude conveyed through sheer repetition.

Kangxi Dictionary: page 1537

龘 is an extreme rarity. It exists almost exclusively as one half of the reduplicated 龘龘 (답답), defined in the 《玉篇》 as describing the manner of a dragon in motion:

《玉篇》: 「龍行龘龘也」

"When a dragon walks, it moves in the manner of 龘龘."

Even this single attested compound 龘龘 has no recoverable example of actual use in any classical or historical text. The character was recorded — but apparently never written in practice.

龘 belongs to a rare class of Chinese characters formed by tripling a single element to intensify or multiply its meaning. Its siblings in the 龍 family:

龖 (답) — U+9F96 — two 龍 (32 strokes): a flying dragon

龘 (답) — U+9F98 — three 龍 (48 strokes): a dragon in motion

𪚥 (절) — U+2A6A5 — four 龍 (64 strokes): garrulous; verbose

The jump to four dragons and the meaning "talkative" is a notable tonal shift — from grandeur to excess, suggesting that even dragons multiplied beyond measure become merely noisy.

The simplified form 𮹝 (U+2EE5D) reduces the character to 15 strokes, a reduction of 33 strokes — one of the more dramatic simplifications on record.

Historically, 龘 was already included in the 龍龕手鑑

(Longan Shouji), a character dictionary compiled during the Liao dynasty and preserved in a Southern Song edition — attesting to its age even if not its practical use.

Related characters:

龍 — dragon (the base component, 16 strokes)

龖 — flying dragon (two 龍, 32 strokes)

𪚥 — garrulous (four 龍, 64 strokes)

鱻 — fresh; three 魚 (fish) tripled by the same logic

矗 — towering; upright; three 直 stacked vertically

Classical citations:

《玉篇》 (Yupian, c. 543 CE, Gu Yewang)

「龍行龘龘也」

"When a dragon walks, it moves 龘龘."

The sole classical definition and the only context in which 龘 is documented. No further textual use has been found in either ancient or modern literature.