Origin

This character combines a hand radical on the left with a sound hint on the right. The hand component suggests an action performed with the hands, while the right side provides a clue to how the character is pronounced. The meaning "extract" or "copy" developed from the idea of using your hands to pick out or select specific things from a larger collection, or to manually copy text by hand. Over time, the character came to encompass related meanings like summary and selection.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).