Origin

This character combines a sound hint with a meaning classifier. The bottom component 貝 originally depicted a shell and came to represent money or valuables in Chinese writing. The top component 任 serves as a sound hint, suggesting roughly how the character should be pronounced. Together, the character means the price you pay for something—whether it's rent for a house, a fare for travel, or wages for work. By pairing the money classifier with the sound hint, the character efficiently conveys both the concept of payment and how to say it aloud.

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