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The archaic Chinese character 芑 (qǐ) originally named a specific white millet and, in some ancient texts, wild chicory. A phono-semantic compound, it places the plant radical 艹 (cǎo) at the top to signal the botanical domain, while the lower element 己 (jǐ) indicates the sound. Its occurrences are mostly limited to classical poetry and ancient agricultural treatises, where it contributes to vivid portrayals of rural scenery, traditional farming methods, and the cereal crops grown by early agricultural communities long before modern taxonomy.
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