Explore each form from the oldest known stage to today.
The character 豆 originally depicted a type of high-footed food vessel or stemmed bowl used in ancient Chinese rituals for holding offerings. In oracle bone script, it clearly shows a container with a wide mouth, narrow base, and standing foot. Over time, its meaning shifted to primarily refer to beans, likely because such vessels were commonly used to serve bean-based foods. The character exemplifies how ancient utensil shapes influenced Chinese writing, with a vessel evolving to represent its common contents. Arrived in Japan: The character 豆 arrived in Japan during the early cultural exchanges with China, likely between the 5th and 7th centuries CE along with other Chinese characters and Buddhist texts. It was adopted into Japanese as 'tō' in Sino-Japanese readings and later came to represent beans (mame) in native Japanese vocabulary.