common cuckoo
Refers to the bird species Cuculus canorus. In Japanese, the name is also used for the family Cuculidae in general, but this word specifically denotes the common cuckoo.
In spring, you can hear the call of the common cuckoo.
Kanji form; rarely used in modern Japanese for the bird. No priority for this form is specified.
Irregular kana variant reflecting a long-vowel pronunciation; encountered in casual writing.
Hiragana spelling, also common.
The Japanese name カッコウ is onomatopoeic, derived from the bird's characteristic call. The kanji 郭公 are ateji (phonetic equivalents) borrowed from Chinese, where they also represent the cuckoo.