About
The character "噘" evolved from "撅" to specifically denote the action of protruding the lips. "撅" is composed of the hand radical and the phonetic element "厥", and it historically carried meanings related to digging or raising. As the sense of sticking out became associated with "撅", the variant "噘" was formed by substituting the hand radical with the mouth radical, thereby narrowing its meaning to the pouting of lips. This modification in structure from hand to mouth aligned the character more directly with its specialized semantic function.