Entrusting character

託 means entrusting a matter to someone. Chinese compounds also cover requests, reliance, and excuses; Japanese adds complaints and oracles.

An ancient bronze inscription uses 託 in a personal name for 奼, “a beautiful young woman.” It also appears in small-seal script, an early standardized form, before the Han era. By the Han era, 說文解字, an early Chinese character dictionary, glossed it as “to entrust.”

Records show 託 predating 托; later, 托 also meant “support by hand” and overlapped with 託 in some entrusting compounds.