Definitions
(a kind of herb)
Etymology
About
蓸 is a phono-semantic compound formed by the grass radical 艹 on top and the phonetic 曹 (cáo) below, indicating a plant pronounced cáo. Historical Chinese dictionaries and botanical texts record it as the name of a particular grass or herbaceous plant. The character illustrates how the writing system paired a semantic signifier for vegetation with distinct phonetics to catalog plant species.
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