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猗 is a phono-semantic compound: the left-side radical 犭 (animal) hints at a beast or mammal, while the right-side component 奇 gives the pronunciation. Its earliest specialized use was a noun for a castrated dog, directly matching the animal radical. This meaning became highly obscure early in the language's history, and the character then served primarily as a literary grammatical particle and an exclamation of deep praise or sighing admiration, common in classical texts. It also developed an adjectival function in classical poetry to describe vegetation as lush, long, and beautiful, moving far from its structural roots.
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