牽

• Physical: Leading or pulling via a tether, rope, or leash (e.g., animals, captives).
• Legal/Social: Entanglement or implication; being linked to a crime or responsibility by association.
• Psychological: Emotional preoccupation, longing, or anxiety caused by an attachment to someone or something distant.

• Primarily functions as a transitive verb.
• In later classical prose, particularly in the sense of "implication," it can carry an implicit passive meaning (e.g., being "dragged into" a situation) without a formal passive marker such as 被.

• Contrast with 引: While both involve pulling/leading, 引 emphasizes guidance, drawing out, or extraction.
• Contrast with 拖: 拖 implies a heavier dragging, often of lifeless objects along the ground.
• 牽 specifically maintains the sense of a lead or tether.

• Simplified variant: U+7275.

• The glyph is grounded in the physical act of leading animals (specifically oxen), implying a continuous physical connection between the leader and the led.

When encountering this glyph, determine if the "pull" is:

1. Literal: A physical lead/rope (animals, prisoners).

2. Associative: A legal or social link (implication, collective guilt).

3. Affective: An emotional tether (worry, longing, preoccupation).