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虖 (hū) is a phono-semantic compound that originally meant to roar or forcefully exhale, like a tiger. It combines the tiger component 虍 on the top-left with 乎 (hū) on the bottom-right; 乎 carries the meaning "roar" and also supplies the pronunciation. In classical texts, 虖 came to function as a grammatical particle, an exclamation, preposition, or interrogative, used interchangeably with 乎. The tiger component anchors the original verbal sense, distinguishing it from the purely grammatical roles that 乎 later acquired.
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