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龀 refers to the biological process of a child shedding their primary (baby) teeth and growing permanent adult teeth, a milestone that marks the transition from early childhood to a more mature stage of youth. Its structure pairs the semantic radical 齿 ('tooth') on the left, which sets the meaning category, with the phonetic component 匕 on the right; this component also carries a secondary connotation of transformation or physical change. The traditional form of the character, 齔, uses the unsimplified tooth radical 齒 together with the same phonetic 匕. Because the character denotes the specific act of losing deciduous teeth, it took on a broader role in classical literature as a refined way to reference childhood itself.
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