I was looking in a dictionary, and both were listed as being defined as "to
lose one's way, to hesitate, or to waver," but I don't understand why there
are two different kanji for the word.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2011-06-25T07:11:18.610
1502
2021-10-26T09:26:19.057
2021-10-26T09:26:19.057
31549
428
question
word-choice kanji synonyms homophonic-kanji spelling
What's the difference between 迷う and 紕う?
OK. Not the greatest answer (based on partial ignorance rather than
knowledge), but on the chance nobody can come up with better:

紕う and 迷う are ostensibly two spellings of the same word (まよう). This happens a
lot in Japanese, as you probably know and is a characteristic feature of the
weird marriage of native (oral) Japanese with native (written) Chinese hanzi.
Many common Japanese words historically have two or three kanji spellings
(see, for example: [all the different spellings of
あける](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1229/nuances-between-the-
different-kanji-spellings-of-vs-vs)).

In this particular case my feeling (and it seems shared by both fluent
foreigners and native speakers) is that 紕う is an **extremely rare** spelling
of 'まよう'. Unfortunately, I cannot give you any information about a possible
nuance between the two, since even the Japanese internet doesn't seem to have
any, but regarding how rare 紕う is:

  * I have never seen it used, where "迷う" would be typically.
  * It is conspicuously absent from the [Tanaka corpus](http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?10) of Japanese sentences (the kanji only appears in entirely different compounds/readings).
  * My IME (Mac OS X) has never heard of it: doesn't offer it as a choice, however hidden for 'まよう'.

Based on all this, I think we can safely say 紕う is a rare/obscure/obsolete
form and 迷う should be used whenever you want to say "lost/confused".
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-06-26T02:29:06.420
1519
2011-06-26T02:29:06.420
2017-04-13T12:43:44.863
-1
290
1502
answer
Dave already answered that there is no difference in 迷う and 紕う in modern
Japanese. Dictionaries agree on this. However, the original meanings of these
two kanji are completely different, and the reason why まよう has these two kanji
notations is related to the history of the Japanese word まよう itself, which is
explained in
[Daijisen](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%BE%E3%82%88%E3%81%86&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0).

Originally, the Japanese word まよう meant for a fabric to become spoiled and for
threads in a fabric to get tangled. This is the meaning of the kanji
[紕](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%B4%95). Note that the radical 糸 (いと;
thread) is in this kanji. I do not know if the word まよう is used in this
meaning in the modern Japanese.

There was an unrelated word
[まどう](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%BE%E3%81%A9%E3%81%86&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=0&index=118519800000&pagenum=1)
which meant to be puzzled or to get lost. Later the words まよう and まどう got
confused, and まよう started to be used also for the meaning of まどう. This is why
まよう means to get lost in the modern Japanese! The kanji
[迷](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E8%BF%B7&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=1&pagenum=1&index=22004921126900)
means to get lost, and it matches the new meaning of まよう (although まどう is
written as 惑う using a different kanji from 迷). The radical 辶 of 迷 means a
road.

All of this suggests that 迷う and 紕う are actually different words with
different meanings, tempting me to claim that it is incorrect to use 紕う for
the meaning “to get lost.” However, as you and Dave said, dictionaries list
both kanji as acceptable and do not seem to make distinction in meanings
between the two kanji. Although I do not know the exact reason for this, my
guess is that the two notations 迷う and 紕う were used interchangeably in the
actual Japanese text often enough to justify listing both kanji in
dictionaries.

_Edit: In an earlier revision, the last paragraph of this answer was unclear.
I reconsidered it, and hopefully this reflects my thought much better._
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-06-26T04:04:20.557
1521
2011-06-26T17:06:38.893
2011-06-26T17:06:38.893
15
15
1502
answer