之
zhī · HSK 7
this
👣 之 started as a foot stepping off a line meaning go; now the catch-all it/this
The old form drew a foot above a baseline, so 之 first meant to go or proceed. Over time it drifted into a grammar workhorse: the pronoun it/him/her and the linker this, as in 之类 (this kind).
之 — foot 止 above ground line 一
Originally a pictograph of a foot (止) stepping forward from a baseline, meaning 'to go' or 'to proceed'. Over time the concrete 'going' sense faded, and 之 was borrowed as a grammatical particle marking possession ('of') or as a pronoun ('it'), which became its dominant use in Classical Chinese.