About
The character 玖 combines the semantic jade radical 王 (indicating precious stones) with the phonetic component 久. It originally referred to a type of black jade or a less valuable gemstone. Due to its homophony with the number nine, it was adopted as the anti-fraud financial numeral for "9" in banking and official documents, replacing the simpler standard character to prevent forgery. As a result, its original gemological meaning is now rarely used, and it functions primarily as a secure numerical character.
Etymology Hide
