Origin

This character shows grass or plants at the top, using a simplified picture of grass leaves. Below that is the character for "early," which serves as a sound hint telling you roughly how to pronounce the full character, not adding to the meaning. Together, the grass classifier on top makes clear the character is about plants, while the sound component below helps speakers remember the pronunciation. Over time, the meaning expanded from just grass to include herbs and writing drafts, probably because early written notes were rough like weeds or because characters were originally written on plant materials.

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