字
zì · HSK 1
letter
📝 字 = 宀 (roof) + 子 (child) — child under roof, learning to write
Originally meant raising a child indoors; extended to teaching, then to written characters themselves. Today 字 means a written character or graph, the building block of Chinese writing.
字 — roof 宀 + child 子
Originally depicted a child 子 under a roof 宀, suggesting birth or rearing a child in the home. The meaning later extended to 'to give birth, nurture' and then to 'written character', since characters were seen as offspring derived from earlier pictographs.