独り
ひとり · hitori · JLPT N3 · noun
alone
🧍 hito (one) + ri (people counter, as in futari) = one person, alone
Hitori is old Japanese hito (one) + ri, the counter for people also found in futari (two people). The kanji 独 means single or solitary, as in 独身 dokushin (unmarried). That is where the second meaning comes from.
独 — dog radical 犭 + 蜀 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 犭 (dog) gives the meaning, since dogs were thought to fight when kept together and so were often kept singly, while 蜀 supplies the sound. The original sense was 'solitary dog,' which broadened to 'alone, single, only.'