Gregory's Server@nina_kali_nina The evolution of these characters is also often insanely whacko, like when an entirely unrelated character gets borrowed to write a homophone, infusing it with a wholly different meaning. Like 來 lái being an image of wheat, repurposed to write the word for "come" that sounded the same.
Character history truly is a deep, endless ocean...
@twilliability that reminds me of others adventures of words, much more recent one - 米国 - beikoku, "rice country" - as a colloquial name for America. Apparently 'Muricans were not very clear in pronouncing the name of their country, so the Japanese version of 1854 US-Japan peace treaty records the name of US as "米利堅" (me-ri-ken, phonetically). It seems that people were too lazy to write all the kanji, so it became 米国 which is read as if it's a "real" word. I have no idea why 米 was chosen for "me" instead of hundreds of other options, though.
@twilliability that reminds me of others adventures of words, much more recent one - 米国 - beikoku, "rice country" - as a colloquial name for America. Apparently 'Muricans were not very clear in pronouncing the name of their country, so the Japanese version of 1854 US-Japan peace treaty records the name of US as "米利堅" (me-ri-ken, phonetically). It seems that people were too lazy to write all the kanji, so it became 米国 which is read as if it's a "real" word. I have no idea why 米 was chosen for "me"...