Explore each form from the oldest known stage to today.
The character 垂 originally depicted a plant or tree with drooping branches, representing the concept of 'hanging down' or 'drooping.' In its earliest oracle bone script forms, it showed branches hanging downward from a main stem. Over time, it evolved through bronze script and seal script forms, gradually standardizing into its modern shape. The character carries meanings of suspension, pendancy, and something that hangs down. By extension, it also came to mean 'to bestow' or 'to confer' (as if something is handed down from above), and is used in words like 垂直 (vertical), 垂れる (to hang/droop), and even appears in Buddhist contexts relating to compassion flowing downward. Arrived in Japan: The character 垂 likely arrived in Japan during the 5th-6th centuries CE, when the Japanese writing system was being developed through contact with China and Korean scribes. It appears in early Japanese texts like the Manyoshu (8th century) and was part of the standard set of Chinese characters imported during the Nara period (710-794 CE) for writing Classical Chinese and developing the Japanese writing system.