Several parts combine into one character.

草 is a phonetic-semantic compound: 艹 (grass radical, the three-sprout symbol of plant life) plus 早 (zǎo, "early"). 早 here contributes only the sound — its original pictograph showed an acorn-like fruit, but by the time 草 was formed, 早 had already drifted to mean "early / morning," and only the phonetic value was borrowed. 草 became the general word for any low-growing plant.

草 also names the flowing, sketchy style of East Asian calligraphy (草書, "grass script") — semi-cursive writing where the brush moves quickly and forms become abbreviated. By extension, 草 took on the meaning "rough draft / preliminary version" — anything done in haste, like grass-style writing.

Korean reading "cho." 雜草 (japcho, weeds), 草原 (chowon, grassland), 草書 (choseo, grass-style calligraphy), 草稿 (chogo, first draft of a manuscript). The "rough draft" sense is alive in Korean academic and journalistic vocabulary — 초고 in Korean refers specifically to a writer's preliminary draft.

Mandarin cǎo, 3rd tone. 草地 (cǎodì, lawn / grassy ground), 草原 (cǎoyuán, grassland / steppe — important in Mongolian-influenced Inner Mongolia and northern China), 草莓 (cǎoméi, "grass-berry" = strawberry — a charming Chinese coinage), 起草 (qǐcǎo, to draft a document). Modern Chinese internet slang has elevated 草 dramatically — typed alone, 草 is used by younger users as an exclamation that can be shock, frustration, or a profanity-adjacent intensifier (it phonetically resembles a common Mandarin curse), and the character's grass-radical visual makes it feel less crude than the actual word.

Japanese on-reading ソウ (sō) — 草原 (sōgen, grassland), 雑草 (zassō, weeds), 草書 (sōsho, grass-style calligraphy). Kun-reading くさ (kusa) is the everyday word: 草 (kusa, grass), 草花 (kusabana, wildflowers), 草木 (kusaki, plants and trees). Modern Japanese internet culture invented one of the most charming web slangs: when something is funny, Japanese write 笑 ("laugh") → abbreviated to w → multiple ws look like grass sprouting → so writing 草 (kusa) means "lol." A Japanese user typing 草 in chat means "this is so funny grass is growing." Pure visual poetry.

Memory aid: 艹 (the grass radical itself doubled as a marker) + 早 (just for the sound) — the generic word for any low plant.