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It represents a government official or a subordinate serving a ruler.

Its origin is a pictograph depicting a bent body with eyes wide open upward, believed to represent the eyes of a slave. Over time, the meaning expanded from "slave" to "minister" who serves the ruler.
In Japanese writing, the character is sometimes written with the box component (匚) split into two strokes, resembling the character 巨.

When used as a radical, it conveys meanings related to slaves or actions involving bowing the head and bending the body.

#123 — sheep, goat

#124 — feather, wing

#125 — old

#126 — to connect, to link

#127 — handle of plow

#128 — ear

#129 — writing brush, paint brush

#130 — meat, flesh

#131 — minister, subject, one who serves

#132 — self, oneself

#133 — to reach, to arrive

#134 — mortar

#135 — tongue

#136 — to be opposed to, to be contrary to, to deviate from, to be disordered, to go astray

#137 — boat, ship

#138 — one of the Eight Trigrams 八卦

#139 — colour, hue

Explore the meaning, etymology and usage of this Chinese character. Learn its radical and how it is applied in Korean language.

Chinese character

Explore 214 Chinese radicals and their derived characters. Sort by radical or stroke count, and view the complete list of official Hanja radicals.

Chinese characters (Hanja)

Chinese characters dictionary

臣

Etymology

Usage in Korean

Characters with 臣

Neighboring radicals in the dictionary

References