女

The character 女 is a pictogram of a woman with folded arms, either kneeling or standing. In its modern form, the character is a reversal of the Oracle Bone script. The enclosed area, bounded on the right by a downward-curving stroke, remains as a remnant of the figure's right arm, while the left arm has disappeared. It is graphically cognate to 母 (mother) and 毋, though 毋 includes dots for distinction. It is similar to, but unrelated to, 卩, which depicts a kneeling person of unspecified gender.

The Shuowen Jiezi glosses the character as "婦人也" (a woman) and identifies it as a pictogram. It is reconstructed from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *naq and is a cognate of the Tibetan ཉག་མོ (woman). In Standard Chinese, the character refers to a woman, female, daughter, girl, young female, or girlfriend. The character is composed of the graphic components 𠃊, 一, and 丿.