noun
horizontal writing; alphabet written horizontally
Literary or old-fashioned term for scripts written left-to-right, especially European alphabets, likened to a crab's sideways movement. Rare in modern everyday use.
明治時代の知識人は、蟹行文字を読むことが教養の証だった。
For intellectuals of the Meiji era, reading horizontally written scripts was a mark of cultivation.
彼は蟹行文字に苦手意識を持っている。
He has a complex about horizontally written alphabetic scripts.
横文字 is a more common, neutral term for horizontally written scripts, especially European languages. 蟹行文字 is a literary, somewhat dated synonym with a vivid crab metaphor.
Compound of 蟹 (crab) + 行 (going) + 文字 (characters), from the resemblance of horizontal writing to a crab's sideways walk. The exact origin is uncertain, but it became a literary term in the Meiji period.