袖

Meaning: “robe; clothing” + “hand; arm”

⟨so₁ te⟩ → /so te/ → /sode/ From Old Japanese. First attested in the Kojiki of 712 with the phonetic spelling 蘇弖 (⟨so₁ te⟩). The te changes to de as an instance of rendaku (連濁). Japanese references that include an etymology note that this appears to be a compound of 衣 (so, “robe; clothing”) + 手 (te, “hand; arm”). However, the initial so- is clearly spelled with the so-called 甲類 (kōrui, “"A" type”) vowel ⟨so₁⟩ in the oldest texts, whereas 衣 when read as so was pronounced with the so-called 乙類 (otsurui, “"B" type”) vowel as ⟨so₂⟩. These were treated as separate vowels in Old Japanese, so this proposed compound cannot be the actual derivation.