Explore each form from the oldest known stage to today.
The kanji 例 is a phono-semantic compound, formed during the Shuowen Jiezi era (c. 100 AD) by combining a semantic and a phonetic component. The semantic component is 人 (the "person" radical, 亻), indicating that the character's meaning is related to human activity or conduct. The phonetic component is 列 (liè), which provides both sound and a layer of conceptual meaning. 列 originally meant "to arrange in order" or "a row/sequence." Thus, the foundational meaning of 例 is "a pattern or precedent established by orderly human conduct." Historically, the character evolved from this core concept. In ancient Chinese texts, 例 was used to signify a rule, regulation, or a model case that serves as a standard for comparison. It implies something that is comparable to other instances arranged in the same category. The character's development followed the standard clerical (隷書) to regular (楷書) script transition in China, solidifying its modern form. The kanji, along with the vast majority of the Chinese writing system, was introduced to Japan in waves, primarily from the 5th to the 8th centuries AD via Korean scribes and Japanese envoys to China. It was adopted into the Japanese language as part of the on'yomi (Chinese reading) vocabulary, with the pronunciation "rei." An interesting linguistic note is that while the modern Japanese meaning of "example" is primary, the character retains its older sense of "precedent" or "custom" in certain compounds, such as 慣例 (kanrei - custom, convention) and 先例 (senrei - precedent), directly linking back to its etymological roots of an established pattern of human behavior.