移 character

Movement or change; the word decides. Mandarin reads 移 as yí in words for moving or transferring. Japanese reads it as i in compounds and uses it in 移る and 移す, verbs for moving or transferring.

Qin-era writing strips of bamboo preserve an early form of 移. The Han-era Shuowen Jiezi, an early Chinese dictionary, glosses it as leaning rice stalks; that old gloss does not prove the character’s origin.

In Japan’s Nara period, 移 also named a formal document exchanged between government offices.