The kanji 掃 means "to sweep," "to clean," or "to brush." It represents the action of removing dirt, dust, or other unwanted substances from a surface using a broom or similar tool. The core meaning revolves around the concept of cleaning and removing something unwanted.

・On-yomi (音読み): ソウ (sou) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): は（く） (haku)

⚫︎ 掃除 (souji) Translation: Cleaning; to clean ⚫︎ 清掃 (seisou) Translation: Cleaning; to clean ⚫︎ 掃き掃除 (hakisouji) Translation: Sweeping; sweeping and cleaning

The kanji 掃 is a phono-semantic compound (形声文字, keisei moji). The left side is the radical 手 (te), meaning "hand," which provides the semantic component (meaning). The right side is 帚 (sou), representing "broom", which acts as the phonetic component (sound). The structure thus suggests the action of using a hand to manipulate a broom or similar tool for cleaning, reflecting the kanji's meaning. The character evolved over time, becoming standardized in its current form.