Origin

The character 珠 combines a radical meaning "jewels" or "precious things" on the left (王, which depicts a jade ornament) with a sound hint on the right (朱) that suggests how to pronounce it. The left side establishes the category — this is something precious — while the right side acts like a label telling you the sound is roughly "shu". Together, the character came to mean pearl or jewel, the specific precious object that fits this combination of meaning and sound.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).