About
Originally, the character referred to a crinkled silk fabric known as crepe. It is a phono-semantic compound: the semantic component 纟 (糸 in traditional 縐) indicates a textile, and the phonetic 刍 (芻) not only suggests the reading but, by depicting bundled stalks, hints at the fabric's crinkled texture. The meaning later broadened from this specific cloth to any wrinkled or creased appearance, rumpled garments, ripples on water, or fine lines on skin.
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