Definitions
old variant of 托[tuō]
"blade of grass" component in Chinese characters
Etymology
Origin unclear. Traditionally explained as a pictograph of a blade of grass.
About
The character 乇 originally represented the idea of entrustment or dependence in classical Chinese, and its modern form is built from a left-falling stroke combined with a horizontal turning stroke. It primarily functions as a phonetic component in characters like 托, contributing the sound "tuo" while its standalone meaning has faded from common use. Over centuries, 乇 transitioned from a independent lexical item to an obsolete graph, now almost exclusively encountered as a structural element in compound characters where it typically denotes pronunciation rather than carrying semantic value.
Etymology Hide
