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硙 (wéi), the simplified form of 磑, denotes a stone mill or the action of grinding grain. It is a phono-semantic compound combining the semantic radical 石 (shí) for stone with the phonetic component 岂 (qǐ) to indicate pronunciation; the traditional form 磑 simply uses 豈 in its place. Historically essential in agricultural and culinary texts, this character referred to the heavy stone apparatus used to mill cereals and grains into flour, and its meaning has remained bound to traditional stone-based milling and mechanical devices throughout its history.
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