Where does “字取り” come from?

字取り (Japanese) comes from Japanese 字, from Middle Chinese 字 — letter, symbol, character; character.

字取り (Japanese): the distribution of any plural number of CJK characters and whitespaces so that they are justified within a specific number of ems, for example, 2 or 3 characters within 4 ems; typically used for titles and headers

Definitions

  1. the distribution of any plural number of CJK characters and whitespaces so that they are justified within a specific number of ems, for example, 2 or 3 characters within 4 ems; typically used for titles and headers

Ancestry of “字取り”, step by step

字取り traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.

via Japanese 字

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese字letter, character; handwriting, penmanship; a...
2Middle Chinese字letter, symbol, character; character

via Japanese 取り

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese取りremover; taking, capturing; take
2Japanese取るto steal; take, pick up; to take
Every word from Middle Chinese 字 →Every word from Japanese 字 →