Perhaps「person with a dry mouth」as the old Chinese form of COTTAGE, INN, DWELL who needed some respite refreshment. It seems to have meant fundamentally to LAY, and later to STOP AND REST ON THE WAY and DWELL AWHILE, or even to GET LAID with elements as「person downward thrusting into an orifice」of one kind or another. Also in Chinese, meaning to GIVE UP, maybe referring to giving up the journey or giving up resistance as in GIVING IT UP. Possibly a very small, ONE-ROOM ramshackle SHACK, HUT along a roadside similar to an airline lavatory or an outhouse where a ewe lamb was securely tied, with a box affixed to the wall for accepting donations of small denomination coins. Notably, sheep have no upper front teeth, and these elements could be interpreted as「tonguing a male person.」Newborn lambs suckle most any appendage spontaneously, it was learned.
　Slightly ambiguous, also as either「before a person is [something] old」or「person doing some tonguing」…note that this glyph was designed during a less hypocritical age when both giving and getting a roadside blow job was neither scandalous nor shocking, a well-recognized means of relaxing, a respected profession, and commonly performed on those with a「preference for screwing mouth orifice.」There are still places all over the world where an old and weary traveler can stop at an inn and receive both a white-foamy head on a pint and a blow job, and not only in China and Southeast Asia.
　Using the modern elements, as a self-deprecatory, first-person singular pronoun in formal speech, the elements may mean「the person before you is old」or just as possible,「person who sucks it up」「person tonguing」and slavering as do some older folk, or as a slurper on a slurpee with one's boss, master, owner, employer. Not surprisingly, the glyph has now morphed to conceal these elements, and the modern Japanese form resembles a cute little house with roof, rafters, and one room. EDRDG note: a「mansion」in Japan is a term applied to what is known in the U.S. of A. as a small condominium dwelling, but the term 'condo' is not used in Japan since it has already been appropriated as a reference to seminal prophylactics.

Modern definitions (that generally disregard history) …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may list only pigeonholed definitions, euphemisms, or meaningless mnemonics)
Chinese: to give up; to abandon; to give alms; residence
Unihan extended: house, dwelling; dwell, reside
EDRDG: inn; hut; house; mansion

Used within names (nanori)
とね