Are both spellings for ふけ (fuke) "dandruff" ateji? If not what's actually going on?


The other day after washing my hair I decided to add the Japanese word for
"dandruff" to my vocabulary. It turns out to be an interesting word.

It has only one pronunciatation, ふけ (fuke), but two kanji spellings and I got
the impression from WWWJDIC this word isn't usually written in hiragana
(correct me if I'm wrong).

  1. 雲脂 literally "cloud fat".
  2. 頭垢 literally "head grime".

But ふ and け are not among the usual readings for 雲, 脂, 頭, and 垢.

So are both spellings ateji? Or what is actually happening? By the way I can't
seem to type them using my Windows IME.

* * *

I also note that these Japanese terms don't seem to share anything in common
with the terms for "dandruff" in the other languages Japanese often has many
factors in common with:

  * **Mandarin** 頭皮屑, 头皮屑 (tóupíxiè)
  * **Korean** 비듬 (bideum)
  * **Okinawan** いりち (ʔirici)

This makes me think it was a Japanese word already before Japan borrowed kanji
from China and the characters were applied for meaning, which would make it a
case of ateji. But this is just a hypothesis for now that I can't prove.




I'm just basically going to summarize the references from user3169.

Until now I've never known that フケ can be written as 雲脂/頭垢. I don't think
either form is common in ordinary use of the language, as it is normally
written in Katakana. But at the same time they are clearly recognized well
enough to be on [Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A0%AD%E5%9E%A2).

According to [語源由来辞典](http://gogen-allguide.com/hu/fuke.html), 雲脂 is 当て字 that
most likely came into being because it's white flaky stuff that comes from a
higher part (of your body), and 頭垢 is also 当て字 that most likely came into
being because it literally means 頭(head)垢(grime). You are right that none of
those kanjis read フ nor ケ in other situations.




I'm just basically going to summarize the references from user3169.

Until now I've never known that フケ can be written as 雲脂/頭垢. I don't think
either form is common in ordinary use of the language, as it is normally
written in Katakana. But at the same time they are clearly recognized well
enough to be on [Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A0%AD%E5%9E%A2).

According to [語源由来辞典](http://gogen-allguide.com/hu/fuke.html), 雲脂 is 当て字 that
most likely came into being because it's white flaky stuff that comes from a
higher part (of your body), and 頭垢 is also 当て字 that most likely came into
being because it literally means 頭(head)垢(grime). You are right that none of
those kanjis read フ nor ケ in other situations.

