Origin

The left part, the eye radical (目), points to the basic meaning of sleep and drowsiness — it's natural to think of eyes closing or becoming heavy when tired. The right part (垂) acts as a sound hint, telling you roughly how to pronounce the character without adding to its meaning. Together, the eye component carries the sense of what the character means, while the sound component helps indicate how it should be read aloud.

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