About
The character 荑 is a phono-semantic compound: the grass radical 艹 at the top indicates a plant, while the lower component 夷 (yí) supplies the pronunciations tí and yí. It denotes the tender, white sprouts of grasses or weeds just emerging from the soil, and in classical poetry, especially the Book of Songs, these delicate shoots became a metaphor for the soft, white hands of a young woman.
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