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This character usually means a type of fungus in Chinese. However, it was also used phonetically in 芝麻(*chimæ, “sesame”) (modern Mandarin芝麻(zhīmá)), and it seems that the Japanese use of this character for the sense of grass may have come from this sesame sense in Chinese.
Compound of し(shi, adjectival ending) + 様(sama, “kind, type”).[2] The sama changes to zama as an instance of rendaku (連濁). The kanji 芝 was used as an ateji, probably based on its on'yomi of shi.
(grammar,obsolete) “shi-type”, referring to the i adjective in Japanese grammar, specifically the ク活用(ku katsuyō, “ku inflection”), corresponding to modern Japanese adjectives ending in -i but not -shii
This is the nomenclature used in the grammar devised by 富士谷成章 (Fujitani Nariakira), a classical Japanese scholar and grammarian in the middle Edo period. Modern i adjectives still had the 終止形(shūshikei, “terminal form”) ending in -shi in the mid-Edo period, hence Fujitani's description of these as the “shi-type” of adjective.