外国人
がいこくじん · gaikokujin · JLPT N5 · noun
foreigner
🌍 外国人 = outside + country + person
外 (gai) means outside, 国 (koku) means country, 人 (jin) means person. Put together: a person from an outside country. The shorter 外人 (gaijin) drops the country part and can sound blunt, so 外国人 is the polite form.
外 — evening 夕 + divination 卜
Originally a compound of 夕 (evening) and 卜 (divination). Ancient Chinese divinations were performed in the morning; doing them at evening (夕) was considered irregular or 'outside' the norm. From this sense of deviation, 外 came to mean 'outside' or 'external'.
国 — enclosure 囗 + jade 玉
国 is a simplified form of 國. The outer 囗 represents borders or an enclosed territory, while the inner 玉 (jade) suggests a treasured realm ruled by a sovereign. The traditional 國 used 或 inside, depicting a guarded region with a weapon, later simplified by replacing it with 玉.
人 — pictograph of a standing person
人 is a pictograph showing a person viewed from the side, with two strokes representing the legs and torso of a standing human. In oracle bone script it clearly depicted a figure leaning slightly forward. The meaning has remained 'person' or 'human' throughout its history.