Definitions
black millet
Etymology
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In classical Chinese, the character 秬 (jù) refers to a distinct variety of black millet, a term that appears in early agricultural and ritual texts. Structurally, it is a phono-semantic compound: the grain radical 禾 (hé) places it within the sphere of crops, and the phonetic 巨 (jù) supplies its reading. This millet was valued in antiquity not as a common food but as the raw material for chang, a special fragrant wine brewed for use in solemn state ceremonies, ancestral sacrifices, and official rites. The ritual indispensability of chang lent the grain a prestige that is well documented in historical agricultural records. The meaning of 秬 is therefore tightly bound to these ceremonial practices.
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