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The character 鹪, whose traditional form is 鷦, denotes the wren, a small bird, and is structured as a pictophonetic compound with the semantic radical 鸟 (simplified) or 鳥 (traditional) indicating its avian category and the phonetic component 焦 providing its pronunciation. This character has been used in written Chinese to refer to the wren, primarily appearing in the compound 鹪鹩, with no significant shift in its meaning over time.
Etymology Hide
