故人
こじん · kojin · JLPT N3 · noun
dead person
🪦 故人 = late/former (故) + person (人): the late person
故 means former or bygone, as in 故郷 (furusato), one's old hometown. Add 人 (person) and you get a person who belongs to the past: the deceased. Read kojin as ko (bygone) + jin (person).
故 — 古 (old) + 攵 (action/strike)
故 combines 古 'old' as the phonetic with 攵, a variant of 攴 meaning to strike or act. Originally it referred to a cause or reason behind an action. From this it extended to mean 'former, old, deceased' and 'therefore, hence' as a connector.
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.