About
The character 燠 is a phono-semantic compound with the fire radical 火 (huǒ) on the left, indicating its semantic connection to heat, and 奥 (ào) on the right, providing the phonetic component. Its primary meaning is intense warmth, historically used in classical texts on meteorology and agriculture to describe sweltering weather or a sultry climate. While its core sense relates to heat, 燠 is now largely confined to literary or formal contexts as an archaic term for extreme heat, rather than common modern usage.
Etymology Hide
