Origin

This character combines water on the left side, which signals that the word refers to a liquid, with a sound hint on the right that suggests how to pronounce it. The water component makes sense for meanings like soup, juice, and broth — all liquids you drink. The right side doesn't directly mean "ten" or anything else; it's just shaped like the number ten and serves to indicate roughly how the character should sound. Together, the liquid indicator plus the sound hint created a character for all kinds of flavorful liquids in food and nature.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).