The kanji 字 primarily means "character," "letter," or "written word." It represents the individual strokes and components used to construct written symbols, as well as the meaning conveyed by those symbols. This kanji encompasses both the visual form and the semantic content of characters.

・On-yomi (音読み): ジ (ji) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): None, but it's often used in words that describe something related to letters or characters.

⚫︎ 漢字字 Translation: Kanji (Chinese characters) ⚫︎ 文字字 Translation: Character, letter, writing ⚫︎ 名字字 Translation: Surname; family name

The kanji 字 is a pictophonetic character. The top part is a simplified form of a roof or house 宀 (かんむり - kanmuri), and the bottom part 子 (こ - ko) originally depicted a baby. The meaning evolved to refer to the written characters used to record words, as if they were offspring or representing the contents within a house. Over time, the meaning shifted from denoting "birth" to "character" or "letter."