迷

Core concept: disorientation (physical, psychological, or spiritual).

1. Spatial: To lose one's way; to wander without a destination.

2. Cognitive/Spiritual: Confusion, delusion, or mental blindness; failure to perceive reality or the correct path (Dao).

3. Affective/Magical: To be infatuated, charmed, or bewitched.

• Intransitive/Stative: To be lost, bewildered, or deluded.
• Transitive: To mislead, delude, or bewitch (leading another astray).
• Attributive: Modifying a noun to indicate something confusing, misleading, or labyrinthine.

• 迷 vs. 惑 (huò): While 惑 typically denotes doubt or intellectual perplexity (a state of questioning), 迷 suggests the trail has already been lost (a state of failure).
• 迷 vs. 茫 (máng): While 茫 describes a vast, featureless expanse lacking landmarks from the start, 迷 implies that a path exists or should exist, but the subject is no longer on it.

The walking radical (辶) indicates that the glyph is fundamentally dynamic; it describes "journeying in the wrong direction" rather than static ignorance.