It is a phono-semantic compound character, formed by combining 人 ("person") and 意 ("intention, thought").

Originally, 億 meant "to be at ease" or "comfortable," coming from the idea of a person (人) whose will or intentions (意) go according to plan. However, through phonetic loan (假借/ 가차), it came to be used exclusively to mean the number one hundred million, and that is its primary use today.

Characters

Words

Vocabulary

false, fake, temporary, to borrow

strong, vigorous, healthy

to spy out, to scout, to investigate

companion, pair, partner, puppet, idol

to prepare, to provide, to be equipped

to transmit, to convey, to pass on

debt, financial obligation

price, value, worth

a hundred million, 100.000.000, hundred-millionth

first, beginning, origin, chief

elder brother, senior male relative

first, foremost, before, earlier

light, radiance, brilliance

child, infant

inside, inner, within

whole, complete, entire

two, a pair, both

The content on this page provided under the CC BY-NC-SA license.

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

億

Etymology

Usage in Korean

Characters next to each other in the list

References