Fine mountains and rivers nurture outstanding people — 钟灵毓秀.
Tips
history
毓 is an old equivalent of 育 (to raise, to nurture) and is not used as a free word today. It survives in the set phrase 钟灵毓秀 and in personal names. The graph shows a mother 母 and a child being born.
register
Literary and bound — modern use is essentially the idiom 钟灵毓秀 and names; ordinary speech uses 育.
The left side carries a mother 母 element written within 每, which is why 毓 is indexed under the mother radical. It supplies the idea of a woman giving birth.
semantic
㐬liú
an upside-down child with flowing fluid
The right side pictures a newborn child emerging head-down with birth fluid — the same graphic seen in 流 and 育. Combined with the mother on the left it spells the act of giving birth and nurturing.
Filed under radical 毋 (wú, #80) by convention. 毋 is not a separate component in 毓, so no strokes are highlighted.
