mực

Non-Sino-Vietnamese reading of Chinese 墨 (“ink”, SV: mặc). Doublet of mức. Cognate with Muong Bi mâc, Khmer មឹក (mɨk), Lao ໝຶກ (mưk), Thai หมึก (mʉ̀k).

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [mɨk̚˧˨ʔ]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [mɨk̚˨˩ʔ]
• (Saigon) IPA^(key): [mɨk̚˨˩˨]

(classifier con (“inkfish → squid”)) mực • (墨, 䘃, 𧞾)

1. ink (coloured fluid used for writing)
2. ink (dark fluid ejected by inkfish)
3. short for cá mực (“inkfish (a cephalopod of the Coleoidea subclass, which includes squids, cuttlefish, and octopuses)”)
   1. (by semantic narrowing) squid (a ten-limbed cephalopod belonging to the Decapodiformes superorder)

      Synonym: mực ống

      Trò chơi con mực ― Squid Game (a South Korean TV series)

4. short for dây mực (“line made by a carpenter's ink marker”)
5. (only in fixed compounds and expressions) level

   mực nước biển ― sea level

The older, broader sense "inkfish" is still seen in synonyms of bạch tuộc (“octopus”) such as mực dúi, mực ruốc, mực phủ, mực dái, mực râu, and mực tua.^[1]

Despite the name's etymology, some coleoids called mực in Vietnamese lack ink sacs and so cannot squirt ink; for examples, the vampire squid, whose English name corresponds to Vietnamese mực quỷ (literally “demon inkfish”).

mực • (墨)

1. (of a dog) black

   chó mực ― a black dog

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