Definitions
rushes; sedges
Etymology
About
茢 is a phono-semantic compound: the grass radical 艹 sits at the top, identifying the character's meaning as belonging to the plant world, while the lower element 列 indicates the pronunciation. It refers primarily to a plant, sedges or rushes, and, by extension, to a broom made from bundled sedges. Such brooms were used in ritual sweeping or for everyday cleaning. Thus, the radical provides the botanical category and the phonetic yields the sound, together naming both the plant and the utilitarian object.
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