About
The character 袟 is a phono-semantic compound. Its left side, the semantic radical 衣 (clothing), indicates the meaning relates to fabric or cloth. Its right side, 失, provides the phonetic element. The primary meaning is a cloth wrapper or covering for books, scrolls, or documents, similar to a modern book jacket. Over time, 袟 became closely associated with and often interchangeable with 帙, which uses the cloth radical 巾 instead of the clothing radical 衣. Both characters share the same phonetic component and convey the identical meaning of a cloth document wrapper or a physical volume of books.