The willow branches swayed and trailed in the wind.
Tips
usage
曳 is literary and bound. You will mostly see it in 摇曳 (to sway, to flicker) and 拖曳 (to drag), not as a standalone verb in speech.
Components
ideograph
曳yè
to drag; to trail
The modern shape is a stylized graph of something being pulled along with a trailing stroke, not a clean combination of independent parts. Treat it as one unit; the long final drag-stroke pictures the trailing motion itself.
Filed under radical 曰 (yuē, #73) by convention. 曰 is not a separate component in 曳, so no strokes are highlighted.
