About
The character 陬 is a phono-semantic compound: the radical 阝 means 'mound' or 'city', and the component 取 means 'take' and supplies the pronunciation. In its earliest uses, the radical tied the character to geography: the corner or angle of a natural or man-made feature such as a mountain base or a defensive wall. Over time, its meaning broadened to denote any corner, angle, or secluded, out-of-the-way spot, with the radical conveying the spatial sense and 取 providing only the pronunciation.
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