The kanji 皆 generally means "all," "everyone," "everybody," or "everything." It conveys the idea of inclusivity, referring to a group as a whole. It signifies the totality of something, not just a part.

・On-yomi (音読み): カイ (kai) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): みんな (minna)

⚫︎ 皆さん、こんにちは！ Translation: Hello everyone! ⚫︎ 皆で頑張りましょう！ Translation: Let's all do our best! ⚫︎ 皆、同じ意見です。 Translation: Everyone has the same opinion.

The kanji 皆 is a phono-semantic compound (形声文字, keisei moji). The left part is "人" (person), and the right part is "皆" (itself), originally a homophone of 偕 (kai) "together." The character thus combines an element representing "people" with an element suggesting "all together." The original form of the character depicted multiple figures, representing a group of people. Over time, it came to be used more generally to mean "all" or "everyone."