Ika (ee-kah) is also the
Japanese word for "
squid." There are two ways to write it in
kanji: 烏賊 "crow robber," or 墨魚 "ink fish." Oddly enough, the first way is much more common, at least according to
Google.
Some other ika-related terms:
yakiika: A festival food consisting of a big chunk of grilled squid with sauce, served on a skewer for portable goodness.
ikayaki: In some parts of Japan, ikayaki is a grilled squid steak: in other parts, it's a squid-based version of okonomiyaki.
ika maki: A simple type of sushi consisting of a morsel of squid rolled up in rice and nori. In nabe cooking, an ika maki is a piece of squid wrapped in fish.
hotaruika: A "firefly squid."
Before someone inevitably asks: No, I don't know what "giant squid" would be. Probably ô-ika.
With different characters, ika can also mean "medicine" (as in the science, not what you drink/swallow/inject) or "clothes rack." As a suffix, it means "less than."