be seen dimly, suggest, intimate, faint, stupid, hint
仄 centers on something barely perceptible or indirectly expressed: seen dimly, faint, hinted at, or suggested rather than stated openly. The 'stupid' sense is a rare, likely archaic extension of being dim or unclear.
仄 combines 厂 (cliff) and 人 (person) in a slanted posture, suggesting something tilted, oblique, or indirect. The exact historical development is uncertain, but the idea of leaning or indirectness is consistent with its meanings.
A person 人 leaning sideways under a cliff 厂 is barely visible and hard to make out clearly—just a dim, hinted presence.
For ソク, imagine a sock puppet giving a faint, indirect hint from under a cliff: sock -> ソク, and the puppet's suggestion is barely seen.
faint; indistinct; dim; vague; subtle; delicate
dimly; faintly; with a faint light
hint; intimation; suggestion; inkling
faintly; dimly; slightly; barely
to hint at; to intimate; to suggest; to allude to; to imply
to be seen dimly; to glimmer
oblique tones (the three tones of Chinese that exclude the high-level, or first, tone)
hearing casually; hearing by chance; learning by hearsay
to hear faintly
to be faintly visible; to be barely visible
oblique-tone rhyme (of Chinese)
meter (in Chinese poetry); consistency
to bring to same level; to harmonize