Traditional Chinese character for money

錢 means money, a fee, or a weight, depending on context.

The old Chinese dictionary 《說文解字》 lists it for a tool used to work soil and cites a farming poem in 《詩經》, an early Chinese poetry collection. This preserves an older farming sense as the character's use shifted to money.

泉, the character for “spring,” also became a word for money, likening currency to water that flows. Japan's 銭 was set at one hundredth of a yen in 1871. In Korea, the fractional unit 전 was written with 錢; after the 1962 monetary reform, it was written in Hangul as 전.