錢
- money;
- cash;
Etymology
It is a phono-semantic compound character formed from:
金 (“metal”) indicating meaning,
戔 (“remnant”) indicating sound.
Additional notes
During the period of the Japanese Empire and under the Allied Occupation, the subunit of the Japanese yen was 銭, pronounced sen according to the On-yomi (Sino-Japanese reading). However, due to postwar hyperinflation, by the late 1940s it became virtually obsolete and was abolished in 1953.
In Korea as well, after liberation from Japanese rule, Article 47-2, Clause 2 of the Bank of Korea Act defined 100 jeon = 1 won. However, with inflation after the Korean War, private transactions using jeon had practically ceased by the mid-1970s, and it was officially discontinued on December 1, 1980.