About
The character 瓞 is a phono-semantic compound: the melon radical 瓜 on the left indicates a vining fruit, while the phonetic 失 on the right suggests the pronunciation. It originally named a young, small melon. Today, it survives almost solely in the classical idiom 瓜瓞绵绵 from ancient literature, which evokes a vine covered with numerous small melons to wish a family unbroken and flourishing generations. Beyond that phrase, 瓞 rarely appears.
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