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Combining the mouth radical 口 (kǒu) and the phonetic 戾 (lì), 唳 is a phono-semantic character whose meaning is constrained to the cry of certain birds. The 口 component indicates that the word relates to a sound produced by a living creature, and 戾 provides the pronunciation lì. The cry it represents is the clear, resonant call of a crane, heron, or other long-necked wild bird. In classical poetry and prose, this sound often conveys desolate beauty, autumnal melancholy, or distant wilderness. The character is famously preserved in the idiom 风声鹤唳 (fēng shēng hè lì), describing a defeated army so panicked that they hear the wind and crane cries as pursuing troops.
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