信用
しんよう · shinyou · JLPT N3 · noun
assurance
🤝💳 信用 = believe (信) + use (用): trust you can put to use
信 means believe or trust, 用 means use. Together: trust solid enough to rely on, hence confidence, dependence, and also financial credit. Shin'yō also echoes Chinese xìnyòng, same characters, same sense.
信 — person 亻 + speech 言
信 combines 亻(person) with 言(speech), depicting a person standing by their words. The original sense is 'truthfulness' or 'sincerity'—what a person says can be trusted. From this it extended to 'believe,' 'trust,' and later 'message' or 'letter,' since a letter carries one's word.
用 — pictograph of a bucket or wooden pail
用 originally depicted a bucket or container, possibly a sacrificial vessel made of wood. Over time it was borrowed to mean 'to use' or 'employ,' losing its concrete object sense. The modern meaning 'use' has been standard since early classical Chinese.