What 楮 means
楮 names paper mulberry and its bark fiber. Early character records include an example inscribed on a Western Zhou bronze vessel. The Shuowen Jiezi, an early Chinese character dictionary dated 100–121 CE, glosses 楮 as 榖, another name for the tree.
The tree’s inner bark supplied fiber for paper. In the Song, Jin, and Yuan dynasties, 楮 could also mean paper money made from that fiber, carrying the sense from tree to writing material to currency.
Why does 楮 appear in paper terms across languages?
The shared link is paper-mulberry fiber. Mandarin reads 楮 as chǔ, roughly “choo” with a dipping tone; Japanese calls the tree kōzo, with a long first o; Korean uses 저, roughly “juh.”
Japanese kōzo is a fiber for washi, traditional Japanese paper. A surviving household register from Mino, a region of Japan, is dated 702 CE. Korean records describe paper-mulberry cultivation and temple papermaking during the Goryeo and Joseon periods.
Your font draws the strokes, so typefaces can change 楮’s silhouette without changing the character.
A literary, historical, botanical, or papermaking character; surrounding words distinguish tree, paper, and currency.
Who writes 楮
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What it means when someone sends it to you
5 readingsPaper mulberry, the tree whose inner bark provides papermaking fiber.
Related characters
1
Combination ideas
3Questions people ask
1Can I use 楮 as a chat reaction?
It could leave the reader guessing. In a sentence, nearby words can show whether you mean the tree, paper, or historical paper money.
More like this
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How to type or find 楮
- Also called
- chǔ · kozo · kōzo
- Search it as
- chu3 · washi · paper money · 楮紙 · 楮幣 · 楮墨
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
楮\696ECodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.