金曜日
きんようび · kinyoubi · JLPT N5 · noun
Friday
🪙 金曜日 = gold + day of the week: gold day, payday Friday
金 (kin) means gold or metal, and 曜日 (youbi) marks a day of the week. Japanese weekdays follow the planets: 金星 is Venus, the metal star, just as Friday comes from Venus's day in Latin (veneris). Kin sounds like king: the king gets his gold on Friday.
金 — roof 亼 + two dots (metal nuggets) + earth 土
Originally a pictograph of metal nuggets buried in the earth beneath a covering, with the two dots representing pieces of ore. It first meant 'metal' broadly, then narrowed to 'gold' as the most precious metal, and by extension 'money'.
日 — pictograph of the sun
日 is a pictograph of the sun, originally drawn as a circle with a dot or stroke inside representing the sun's substance. Over time the round shape was squared off into the modern rectangular form. It means 'sun' and by extension 'day'.