Origin

This character appears to combine the idea of something bound or enclosed (the box-like component 冂) with the concept of hands or a bundle held together (廾, which suggests two hands holding something). Together, these elements represent a tome or bound collection of pages—something that pages are gathered and held together to form a book. The character's shape suggests pages stacked and secured, which is why it came to mean a volume or single book, and eventually became used as a counter word when counting books.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).