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The character 凼 is formed by enclosing the water component 水 within the receptacle radical 凵, a direct visual representation of water pooling in a low-lying area. It is a regional variant of the character 氹, and denotes a pool, a puddle, or a small ditch filled with water. Its use is largely confined to southern Chinese dialects, where it describes stagnant bodies of water or natural depressions in the ground. The character is a purely semantic compound, with the containing boundary clearly conveying a bounded liquid without relying on any phonetic element.
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