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The character 郅 is a phono-semantic compound. Its left side, 至 (zhì), provides the pronunciation and means 'to arrive, to reach'; its right side, 阝, is derived from the independent character 邑 (yì), which denotes a city or town. Historically, 郅 was used as a specific toponym before becoming established as a Chinese surname. In classical literature, it also gained the meaning 'extremely' or 'greatly', a semantic extension of the idea of reaching the utmost limit, which is already implicit in the 至 component.
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