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獾 is a phonosemantic compound for 'badger', formed by combining the animal radical 犭 (a variant of 犬 'dog') with the phonetic component 雚, which supplies the sound huān. Although 雚 originally depicted a kind of bird, it functions purely as a sound marker here. The character is a simplified form of 䝔, keeping the same meaning and pronunciation while replacing the original radical with 犭, a common classifier for wild mammals and carnivores. It appears in compound names to distinguish related species such as the honey badger and Eurasian badger.
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