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螵 (piāo) is a phono-semantic compound pairing the insect radical 虫 (huǐ) , which broadly denotes insects, worms, and reptiles , with the phonetic 票 (piào). It appears almost exclusively in the binomial 桑螵蛸 (sāngpiāoxiāo), the egg case (ootheca) of a praying mantis. The radical places it within entomology, and its usage is overwhelmingly in traditional Chinese medicine, where the mantis egg case is a recognized medicinal ingredient. Beyond this specialized context, 螵 has no independent meaning or standalone function.
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