The kanji 物物 primarily means "thing," "object," or "matter." It refers to any tangible or intangible entity that exists. It can encompass a wide range of things, from physical objects to abstract concepts.

・On-yomi (音読み): ブツ (butsu)、 モツ (motsu) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): もの (mono)

⚫︎ 食べ物 (tabemono) Translation: Food ⚫︎ 買い物 (kaimono) Translation: Shopping, purchases ⚫︎ 動物 (doubutsu) Translation: Animal

The kanji 物物 is a phono-semantic compound (形声文字). ⚫︎ The left side represents the "radical" (部首), which is 牛(うし, ushi) meaning "cow, cattle." ⚫︎ The right side is a phonetic component, which also represents the sound of the character. ⚫︎ Initially, the character was related to a cow or cattle, and gradually extended to mean "things," "objects," or "matter" in general. The cow-related meaning is less common now.