歯医者
はいしゃ · haisha · JLPT N4 · noun
dentist
🦷 歯医者 = tooth (歯) + doctor (医者): the tooth doctor
歯 (ha) means tooth, and 医者 (isha) means doctor, so ha + isha = haisha. Same pattern as 目医者 (meisha), eye doctor. Sound hook: the dentist says hi, sha-ll we begin?
者 — old/elder 耂 + say 曰
Originally depicted sugarcane or a similar plant, but the form was reanalyzed as 耂 (old) over 曰 (say). It became a grammatical suffix meaning 'one who…' or 'the…thing,' nominalizing verbs and adjectives. Today 者 mainly marks agents or categories, as in 学者 'scholar' or 记者 'reporter.'