Origin

The character 拾 combines a hand component on the left with 合, which means "fit together" or "combine," on the right. The hand shows the physical action of picking something up, while the "combine" element suggests gathering multiple things together. When you pick things up, you're collecting and joining them into a group, so the two parts work together to express the idea of gathering or collecting by hand. This compound meaning naturally extended to the word for the number ten, since ten is also about combining units together.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).