kanji-a-day:1220/2000JLPT: N1School Grade: Junior high schoolThis character has a somewhat obscure o
kanji-a-day:1220/2000JLPT: N1School Grade: Junior high schoolThis character has a somewhat obscure origin. Older forms show that it was written as a combination of 女 woman and an obscure component that was associated with the emperor Huangdi. was used phonetically to express the name of the river where emperor Huangdi was believed to be born. 姫 originally referred to women of the Huangdi line. Later, 姫 came to mean “princess / noble lady” in general. One theory even says that there were many beautiful descendants of this line, so 姫 came to have an association with beautiful women.The current form is written as a combination of 女 woman and 臣 staring eye/retainer. This may have occurred due to an assumption that 姫 was meant to refer to a woman who is guarded or protected. -- source link