About
The character 佰 is a phono-semantic compound. Its left-side "person" radical 亻 (rén) provides the semantic category, while the right-side 百 (bǎi), meaning "hundred", supplies the phonetic component. Originally, 佰 denoted a leader of one hundred people, reflecting the connection between the "person" radical and the numerical element. The character has since evolved from this specific military title. Today, it functions exclusively as the anti-fraud financial numeral for 100, used in banking and accounting to deter alteration. The added complexity of the 亻 radical makes the character more difficult to forge in formal transactions compared to the standard numeral 百.
Etymology Hide
