Origin

This character is a stylized picture of a dragon, capturing its serpentine shape and mystical form in a few flowing strokes. In ancient Chinese artwork, dragons were drawn with curved, winding lines that suggested their long, sinuous bodies and the power they embodied. Over centuries of writing, the detailed picture simplified into the modern kanji character you see today, though the swooping strokes still hint at a creature in motion. Because dragons were revered symbols of imperial power and divine authority in East Asian cultures, the character came to mean both the creature itself and anything associated with the emperor or the sacred.