Origin

This character combines woman (女) on the left with stone (石) on the right. The ancient image appears to be of a woman's heart becoming hard and rigid like stone when filled with jealousy and envy. In East Asian thought, emotions were believed to physically affect the body, so a jealous person's heart would harden and become blocked. The character thus pictures the emotional state of jealousy through the visual metaphor of softness turning to stone.