Origin

The left side, 酉, is a radical that classifies characters related to alcohol and fermentation—it's a picture of a wine vessel. The right side, 㐮, provides a sound hint for how to pronounce the character. Together, the combination of "alcohol-related" meaning and the sound component gives us a character that means to brew or ferment. The extended meaning of "cause" likely developed because brewing is a process of creating or causing something new to form.

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