About
洮 (táo) is a phono-semantic compound: the water radical 氵 (shuǐ) signals a connection to water or liquids, while the phonetic component 兆 (zhào) gives the pronunciation. Its primary use is as the proper name of the Tao River (洮河), a major tributary of the Yellow River in Gansu province. In classical texts, it also appears as a verb meaning to wash or cleanse, a sense that naturally draws on the water radical.
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