In Japanese, 蔵 means a "storehouse" of some kind (possibly a cellar, granary, treasury, etc., and possibly used in an abstract sense). The strange thing is that, underneath the plant radical at the top, the basic framework of the character comes from a word meaning "to kill" (and still used in Chinese as such, if rarely: 戕害,
qiāng hài). Added to this is the familiar glyph for an overseer (or government official of some kind). Incongruously, the combination of these two results in a character meaning "happy", or, sometimes, "skillful". Although this is presumed to be arbitrary (or "merely phonetic"), the ominous tone of the etymology here is not entirely unique: the correct origin of 幸 (in
shiawase, "happiness" &
xìng, "good fortune") is similarly macabre.
