独創

どくそう · dokusou · JLPT N1 · noun

originality

🎨 独 (alone) + 創 (create) = creating something alone, original

独 means solitary or single, and 創 means to create or originate. Together they describe creating something that is one's own, with no copy before it.

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.'

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