About
哕 (traditional: 噦) is a phono-semantic compound character. The mouth radical 口 gives the meaning of oral actions or sounds, while the phonetic component 岁 (simplified from the traditional 歲) indicates the pronunciation. Historically, this character has carried two distinct meanings, each associated with a different pronunciation: one is the physical act of retching or vomiting, and the other is an onomatopoeic representation of the rhythmic ringing of horse-carriage bells in classical Chinese texts. The simplified form 哕 was created by replacing the complex phonetic 歲 with its simplified counterpart 岁, reducing the stroke count. The mouth radical remains to signal the oral-related semantic field, and both original meanings are preserved unchanged.
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