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磲 appears almost exclusively in the binomial compound "砗磲", referring to the giant clam or the precious, jade-like material from its shell. It is a phono-semantic compound, with the semantic radical "石" (stone) indicating the hard, mineral-like quality of the shell, and the phonetic component "渠" (originally meaning ditch or canal). This shell was historically valued alongside jade, pearls, and coral as an organic gemstone in Buddhist traditions. Over time, its meaning has remained strictly confined to this specific marine organism and the material derived from it, without developing an independent semantic usage outside this compound term.