Explanation for ゆで卵 seems wrong

the explanation given for ゆで卵 claims that the ゆ comes from 湯 - hot water. however when looking on e.g. jisho.org, they give an alternative spelling of 茹で卵, with the 茹 meaning “boil”.

even if 茹 is a rarer kanji, and perhaps not covered on WK, it seems wrong to give what seems to be an incorrect explanation. in particular on a kanji learning website.

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Possibly it’s intended more as a mnemonic rather than any claim to the etymology, but yeah, that wording.

I wonder if ChatGPT wrote it…

Joking aside, Wiktionary concurs that it’s from 茹でる, though it’s lacking the etymology that it often provides. 湯 doesn’t put in any appearence at all, either way.

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Didn’t know eggs are seal shaped. TIL.

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Seals can sometimes be egg-shaped.

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Goo has ゆでる as a sound change of うでる (and another kun’yomi for 茹 is う.だる), so unless 湯 also changed from う to ゆ at some point and Goo doesn’t have it bc it’s never read う anymore, I’m not so sure they are related linguistically despite being so conceptually

Also, it doesn’t have etymology, but it does have two different ways to write it in kanji:

The ゆで part can’t be written any other way.

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