The character 目 (mù): eye

On a cream ground, a large eye is drawn flat and seen head on at the left: a coral outline, cream white, a golden amber iris streaked with fine rays, a deep teal pupil, and coral lashes along the upper lid. At the right stands the character 目 in dark brown: an upright rectangle, taller than it is wide, divided into three cells by two inner bars.
Pronunciation
mù
Strokes
5
Radical
目

What it means

eye; (literary) to look; to regard; eye (of a net); mesh; mesh size; grit size (abbr. for 目數|目数[mu4 shu4]); item; section; list; catalogue; (taxonomy) order; name; title

Where its shape comes from

An eye, pupil and all, and it used to lie on its side. The oldest forms draw it horizontally, the way an eye actually presents itself; it was stood upright later on, like other broad pictograms that had to fit inside a square. To see an eye in it again, you have to turn it back through a quarter turn.

Source: Xu Shen, Shuowen Jiezi (121 CE); the Chinese University of Hong Kong character database.

How it used to be written

Forms, sources and dates: the 字形演變 database of 小學堂, Academia Sinica, public domain (CC0).

A way to remember it

An upright frame, taller than it is wide, with TWO bars inside dividing it into three compartments. One bar fewer and you have written 日 (rì), the sun; one bar more and you have written nothing at all.

This is a memory aid, not the origin of the character.

Words it appears in

Writing it

See the stroke order of 目, animated stroke by stroke.

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