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罙 is the archaic character that directly underlies 深 (shēn, 'deep'). It combines the radical 穴 ('cave') over 木 ('tree'), depicting a person venturing deep into a cave; the dark interior and the tree together evoke a profound, sheltered space. This scene originally expressed the act of probing or searching within a hidden depth. Over time, 罙 became the phonetic and semantic core for a series of characters relating to depth, vastness, or profundity, including 深, as well as 探 (tàn, 'to explore') and 琛 (chēn, 'treasure'), all of which inherit the central notion of something deep or concealed.
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