Origin

This character appears to be a picture of a bone, with the vertical line down the center representing the shaft and the horizontal strokes branching out to suggest the knobby joints or ends where bones connect. The overall shape captures the basic structure of a skeletal bone as it would look stripped of flesh. Over time, the detailed pictograph simplified into the more angular form we see today, but it still carries that visual echo of a bone's shape. Because bones form the framework holding up our bodies, the character naturally came to mean skeleton, frame, and by extension, the remains of something.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.