Definitions

the crop of a bird

Etymology phono-semantic

mouth

Semantic: Phonetic:

About

is a phono-semantic compound: the left radical (mouth) conveys the sense of eating and the upper digestive tract, while the right component provides the pronunciation. The character is a technical term for a bird's crop, a muscular pouch near the gullet that temporarily stores and softens food before digestion. It appears almost exclusively in agricultural and veterinary texts or ornithological descriptions, not in casual conversation.