ホウ, たから, たか

treasure, jewel, precious, rare

JLPT0 G13 S0 F5000

This character was written with a combination of many different elements before was settled upon as the standard form. Among these combinations, most of the forms featured both roof/building and 貝 commodities. The phonetic similarity to suggests that the original idea of the character that came to be written was that of , namely, a building stocked with abundant possessions → *treasure* → *currency* → *cherish*.

[Full Kanji Etymology List]