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蹉 combines 足 "foot" and 差 "error", forming a phono-semantic compound in which the foot radical sets the semantic category and 差 both suggests the idea of a misstep and provides the pronunciation. Its original meaning is slipping, stumbling, or missing one's footing. Over time this extended figuratively to missing an opportunity or idly letting time slip away, a temporal misstep. This figurative sense is central to the compound 蹉跎, "to waste time".
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