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锨 (traditional: 鍁) is a noun denoting a shovel or spade used for digging and moving loose materials like soil or coal. It is a phono-semantic compound: the left radical 钅, abbreviated from the traditional metal radical 釒, places it in the category of metal tools, while the right component 欣 is purely phonetic, supplying the pronunciation xīn or xiān (with historical dialectal differences) and adding nothing to the meaning. The character is common in agricultural and construction vocabulary, often forming the compound 铁锨 to specify an iron shovel. The modern simplified form retains the abbreviated metal radical and the same phonetic, functioning exactly as the traditional 鍁 in both spoken and written contexts.
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