Example sentences
zhè这běn本shū书shì是nǐ你de的ma吗？
Is this book yours?
tā他mǎi买le了yī一běn本shū书。
He bought a book.
The story behind the character
本
本 is a tree with a mark at the bottom. 木 is the tree, and the short horizontal stroke points at the roots. Xu Shen put it plainly: 本, 木下曰本, the underside of a tree is called 本. Root, origin, source, all of it lives in that one stroke. Somewhere along the way 本 also became the measure word for books.