万人
ばんにん · bannin · JLPT N1 · noun
people
🌏 万 = ten thousand, 人 = person: ten-thousand people, i.e. everybody
万 (ban) means ten thousand and 人 (nin) means person. Put together, 万人 literally counts ten thousand people, which is used to mean 'everybody' or 'all people'.
万 — top 一 + 𠃌 (hook) over 丿
Originally a pictograph of a scorpion, used in oracle bone script. It was borrowed phonetically to mean 'ten thousand' and the original scorpion sense was lost. The traditional form 萬 shows the scorpion more clearly; 万 is a simplified variant long used as a common shorthand.
人 — pictograph of a standing person
人 is a pictograph showing a person viewed from the side, with two strokes representing the legs and torso of a standing human. In oracle bone script it clearly depicted a figure leaning slightly forward. The meaning has remained 'person' or 'human' throughout its history.