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The character 揲 (pronounced shé or yè) is a phono-semantic compound: the hand radical 扌 (shǒu) signals an action performed with the hands, and the component 枼 (yè) indicates the sound. It is best known for its specialized role in the ancient Chinese divination technique using milfoil or yarrow stalks, where 揲 describes the manual process of sorting, dividing, and counting the stalks to produce a hexagram. Apart from this divinatory sense, the character can also be read yè, meaning to fold or to hold objects.
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