The three Ancient pictograph possibilities for this letter are , and . The word "tsad" means "side" as a man lying on his side and may be the meaning of the last two pictographs. Most ancient Semitic alphabets used pictographs which closely resemble the last pictograph indicating that this was most likely the original form of the letter.

The meaning of this letter is the side of something as well as hunting and chasing through the idea of laying down in ambush. The modern name for this letter is tsade, a child root from the word tsad also meaning side. The phonetic sound of the letter is a "ts" in both ancient and modern Hebrew.

The early pictograph evolved into in the Middle Semitic script and continued to evolve into in the Late Semitic Script. From the middle Semitic script comes the Modern Hebrew צ and ץ. Modern Greek and Latin has no letter derived from this Semitic letter.