About
The character 仃 is a phono-semantic compound: its meaning is conveyed by the person radical 亻 on the left, and its sound is given by the phonetic component 丁 on the right. The person radical links the character to human conditions, and the term denotes a state of being entirely alone, lacking companionship, and without support. It occurs almost exclusively in the two-character expression 伶仃, which powerfully evokes a lonely, vulnerable person, emphasizing a state of solitary helplessness.
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