死
し · shi · JLPT N3 · noun
death
🪦💀 歹 bare bone + 匕 kneeling person; shi is also 4, Japan's unlucky number
The left part 歹 is a stripped bone and the right part 匕 is a person bowing beside it, like a mourner at the remains. Because し sounds like death, Japanese often says yon for 4, and some hospitals skip room 4.
死 — 歹 (bare bones) + 匕 (kneeling person)
Originally a pictograph showing a living person (匕) beside skeletal remains (歹), depicting someone mourning or kneeling next to a corpse. The combination came to mean 'death' or 'to die.' The 歹 component, derived from a bone fragment, signals the death-related meaning across many related characters.