This is part of a tradeoff that UniDic makes between "natural" word boundaries and other factors like reproducibility and usefulness for search indexes. UniDic

This is part of a tradeoff that UniDic makes between "natural" word boundaries and other factors like reproducibility and usefulness for search indexes. UniDic has a rule that a "word" (or a "short unit word" 短単位, the unit used in UniDic) can't be more than two "minimal units", where an example of a minimal unit is a kanji with a Chinese reading. So 麩菓子 can't be a word, and in this case it's 菓子 with 麩 on the front. You can read more about short unit words here. https://unidic.ninjal.ac.jp/glossary#suw https://unidic.ninjal.ac.jp/glossary#suw It's not a perfect tradeoff, and I think it can be improved, but it does have its advantages.