The kanji 呉 primarily refers to an ancient Chinese state that existed during the Three Kingdoms period (229-280 AD). It also represents a geographical location and, by extension, people or things associated with that area.

・On-yomi (音読み): ゴ (go) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): None, or very rare.

⚫︎呉服屋 (ごふくや) Translation: A kimono shop; a draper. This word originally referred to shops that sold goods imported from the ancient state of 呉. ⚫︎呉 (くれ) Translation: Often used as a place name, like the city of Kure in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. It’s also sometimes used as a short form for “呉服” or kimono. ⚫︎呉 (ご) の人 (ひと) Translation: People from the country of 呉 or, by extension, someone who is associated with 呉.

The kanji 呉 is a phono-semantic compound (形声文字). The left side is a radical (偏 (へん), hen) which is "口" representing "mouth" or "speech", and the right side is the sound component (声符 (せいふ), seifu) "吳" which provides the sound of the character. The character originally depicted a person speaking or chanting. Over time, it came to be associated with the powerful kingdom of 呉.