The baby fell to the earth crying, its wail filling the delivery room.
Tips
usage
呱 is most commonly used in the reduplicated form 呱呱, imitating croaking sounds. The phrase 呱呱坠地 is a literary expression meaning to be born - literally to fall to earth crying.
Mouth radical on the left, the indexing radical. It marks 呱 as a sound - a frog's croak, a duck's quack, a newborn's wail. Onomatopoeic characters almost always lead with 口, and this one fits the pattern exactly.
The right side 瓜 supplies the guā sound exactly - the same sound a frog or duck makes, which is the whole point of the onomatopoeia. The melon meaning is irrelevant here; 瓜 is just the sound clue. The same element appears in 孤 (alone) and 狐 (fox).
