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芴 is a phono-semantic compound: grass radical 艹 (cǎo) placed above phonetic 勿 (wù, 'do not'). Originally a botanical term, it referred to various edible wild plants, herbs, roots, and others, depending on the region and historical period. In classical philosophical texts, it combines with 恍 to form 恍芴 (huǎnghū), a variant of 恍惚, conveying a state of indistinctness and elusiveness; here the grass radical loses its meaning entirely, and the character functions only phonetically to express abstract metaphysical concepts.
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