Definitions
a kind of hawk
Etymology
About
The character 鶗 (tí) is a phono-semantic compound created to name certain birds in classical Chinese, most often the cuckoo or some types of hawks. Its structure combines the semantic radical 鳥 (niǎo, 'bird') indicating the meaning, and the phonetic component 是 (shì), which suggests the pronunciation despite a shift in modern tones. In early poetry and seasonal descriptions, it referred to migratory birds whose calls were linked to seasonal change, and its usage never strayed from ornithological contexts, never entering general vocabulary.
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