Chinese

Noun

珊瑚礁

1. coral reef

Japanese

珊瑚礁 (sango shō): an atoll formed from a coral reef

Etymology

Compound of 珊瑚 ‎(sango, “coral”) +‎ 礁 ‎(shō, “reef”).^[1][2]

Pronunciation

• On'yomi: Goon
• (Tokyo) さんご​しょう [sàńgóꜜshòò] (Nakadaka - [3])^[2]
• IPA^(key): [sã̠ŋɡ̃o̞ ɕo̞ː]

Alternative forms

• サンゴ礁

Noun

珊瑚礁 ‎(hiragana さんごしょう, romaji sango shō, historical hiragana さんごせう)

1. a coral reef

Usage notes

As with many biology terms, the sango part is more commonly written in katakana, as サンゴ. However, due to the large number of homophones in Japanese, dictionaries will often list such terms under the kanji spelling for disambiguation purposes.

References

1. ↑ 1988, 国語大辞典（新装版） (Kokugo Dai Jiten, Revised Edition) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan
2. 1 2 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, ISBN 4-385-13905-9

Korean

Noun

珊瑚礁 • ‎(sanhocho) ‎(hangeul 산호초)

1. Hanja form^? of 산호초, “coral reef”.