楮

chǔ

木 + 者

Definitions

chǔ Broussonetia kasinoki

Etymology

Phonosemantic compound. 木 represents the meaning and 者 represents the sound. Originally written as 者, which is a pictograph of a tree with paper mulberry leaves.

Semantic: 木 Phonetic: 者

About

The character 楮 (chǔ) is a phono-semantic compound: 木 (mù) gives the meaning 'tree', and 者 (zhě) the sound. Originally, 者 was a pictograph of a paper mulberry tree with its leaves; later 木 was added to create 楮, which first named that tree. Paper mulberry bark was a key material in traditional papermaking, so the character's meaning shifted by metonymy to paper and paper money. In literary and historical works, 楮 thus serves as an elegant term for writing materials and currency.