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The character 虿, written as 蠆 in traditional form, is a noun referring to the scorpion and various venomous stinging insects in classical Chinese texts. The traditional character combines the phonetic component 萬 (wàn) on top with the radical 虫 below, placing it in the semantic category of bugs and crawling creatures. In the simplified version, the complex 萬 is replaced by the much simpler 万, which dramatically reduces the stroke count while preserving the same phonetic and semantic relationship. This character often appears in historical texts and idioms to evoke extremely dangerous or toxic situations, a metaphor drawn from the scorpion's natural defensive sting.
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