Origin

The character 枕 combines wood (木) on the left, which classifies objects made of wood, with a component on the right that provides a sound hint for pronunciation. A pillow is traditionally a wooden object—in ancient times, people rested their heads on wooden blocks or wooden-framed pillows. By pairing the wood radical with a phonetic element, the character came to mean "pillow," the wooden object you lay your head on.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).