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矧 is a phono-semantic compound: the left side 矢 is the arrow radical associated with archery and weaponry, while the right side 引 serves as the phonetic, also meaning "to draw a bow". In classical Chinese, however, the character entirely sheds its martial imagery and functions as an abstract conjunction or adverb meaning "much less", "let alone", or "how much more". This semantic shift turned a concrete bow-and-arrow symbol into a grammatical particle that emphasizes a statement by contrasting it with an even more obvious preceding one, typical of formal classical discourse.
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