Origin

This character combines two parts to describe the back of the neck. The right component, 頁, is the radical meaning "head" or "page," and it grounds the character's primary sense as a part of the body — specifically the nape of the neck where it connects to the shoulders. The left component, 工, serves as a sound hint, roughly indicating how the character should be pronounced without contributing to its meaning. Over time, the concrete sense of "nape of the neck" extended metaphorically to mean sections or divisions, much like how a paragraph divides a text into distinct parts, giving rise to meanings like "paragraph," "clause," "item," and "term."

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