Origin

This character combines "grain" or "plant" on the left with "small" on the right. In ancient Chinese timekeeping, a "second" was originally understood as a very small division of time—just as you might divide a grain of rice into smaller pieces. The character's shape reflects this idea: taking something (the grain radical) and making it small, which captured the sense of a tiny unit. Over time, this character became the standard way to write "second" as a unit of time, even though the original visual logic connects it to the concept of smallness rather than modern time measurement.