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妪 combines 女 (woman) on the left and 区 (area, ward) on the right, evoking a woman watching over her ward , an old woman. The traditional form 嫗 swaps the simplified 区 for the full 區. This character denotes an elderly female and appears almost exclusively in classical and literary contexts, as in 老妪 (lǎoyù); it is seldom used independently in modern spoken Chinese.
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