About
苜 is a phono-semantic compound. The semantic radical 艹 (grass) indicates it belongs to the plant category, while the component 目 provides the phonetic element. It appears almost exclusively in the bisyllabic word '苜蓿' (mùxu), meaning alfalfa or clover, a fodder plant introduced to China via the Silk Road during the Han Dynasty. This construction shows how standard Chinese components were adapted to transcribe foreign botanical terms.