电 diàn is a simplified form of 電, which originated as a pictograph showing lightning (申 shēn — a zigzag bolt) descending from a rain cloud (雨 yǔ). The original oracle-bone and bronze-script forms are dramatically vivid: a cloud at the top with a serpentine lightning bolt zigzagging downward. This was the natural phenomenon — lightning during a storm — before the character was drafted to name the force of modernity.

The traditional character 電 retains the rain radical 雨 above and the lightning component 申 below. In simplification (1956–1964), the rain component was reduced and the character compressed to 电 — five strokes versus thirteen. The simplification loses some visual poetry but preserves the phonetic connection (申 shēn is the phonetic component; the initial consonant shifted across millennia of phonological change).

电 underwent one of the most remarkable semantic expansions in the history of Chinese: originally denoting only lightning, it was appropriated in the 19th century as Chinese encountered Western electrical technology. Every new electrical technology received a 电 compound — telegraph (电报), telephone (电话), electricity itself as utility (电力/用电). This single character bootstrapped a vocabulary for the entire electrical age. When digital technology arrived, 电 extended further: 电脑 (computer — "electric brain"), 电子 (electronics — "electric child"), 电商 (e-commerce).