About
迓 (yà) is a phono-semantic compound combining the radical 辶 (chuò), which denotes walking or movement, and the phonetic 牙 (yá, 'tooth'), whose only role is to indicate the sound. The character means to go out and welcome or receive a guest, functioning as a formal, classical alternative to ordinary verbs for welcoming. Over time, it fell out of colloquial use and became restricted to formal, literary, and archaic settings. Today it survives almost exclusively in classical texts and fixed idiomatic expressions, where it evokes the ceremonial reception or formal greeting of important figures.
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