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瘐 is a phono-semantic compound: the sickness radical 疒 gives the meaning, and the phonetic 臾 gives the pronunciation. The character originally denoted prisoners dying in confinement from cold, hunger, maltreatment, or disease, a grim reality closely connected to the radical. In classical texts, its sense broadened to include maltreatment or physical suffering in general. Today, 瘐 is a rare term that appears overwhelmingly in historical and literary sources, not in everyday Chinese.
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