Origin

The character 裾 combines "clothing" on the left with "to sit or reside" on the right. The idea is that the hem or cuff is the part of a garment where you sit or where fabric gathers at the lower edge—the bottom part that stays in place. By extension, this sense of "bottom" or "lower edge" also applies to the foot of a mountain, which is the base where the mountain "rests." The character essentially pictures clothing pooling at its lowest point, whether that's a fold in fabric or the base of a slope.

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