萬

Its form consists of 艸 ("grass") on top and 禺 ("foolish") below, but the character is originally a pictograph.

In oracle bone script, 萬 depicted the shape of a scorpion and originally meant "scorpion." Later, through phonetic loan (假借/ 가차), it came to represent the concept of "ten thousand." The original meaning of "scorpion" is now taken by the character 蠆.

In Old Chinese, the pronunciations of 萬 and 蠆 were originally similar. However, 蠆 gained a prefix s- (a common prefix for animal names), which altered its initial consonant and distinguished it from 萬.

As a numeral, 萬 represents 10,000 and its ordinal form. Beyond that, it also means "all," "very," "extremely," "entire," "numerous," or "long-lasting." The Korean and Chinese surname "Man" (萬) uses this character, though it's quite rare.

In traditional Chinese culture, 10,000 was seen as the largest practically observable number, so 萬 came to symbolize great magnitude or abundance, while larger units like 億 (100 million) and 兆 (trillion) were seldom used.

A variant character (이체자) of 萬 is 万, which some believe originated as a simplified form of the Buddhist symbol 卍 (swastika) that spread into China along with Buddhism. According to this theory, the form 万 didn’t exist before the Han dynasty (when Buddhism began to spread in China), supporting the idea that it came from the stylized 卍.

万 also appears in the rare surname 万俟, pronounced Mokgi in Korean. In this case, 万 is not a simplified character, but part of the surname's unique reading. In phonetic guides:

万 is noted in the Guangyun dictionary as 莫北切 (mak + buk) and in the Jiyun as 密北切 (mil + buk).

俟 appears in Jiyun as 渠之切 (geo + ji).

People unfamiliar with Chinese characters sometimes mistakenly use 萬 instead of 滿, which means "full" or "satisfied." Even those knowledgeable in Hanja can be confused in idiomatic expressions, since some phrases that seem like they should use 滿 actually use 萬 — such as 萬無 (utterly none) and 萬全 (utmost thoroughness). These must be memorized individually, as there’s no clear rule to distinguish them.