一头
yī toú · HSK 7
one head
🐂 一头 = 一 one + 头 head; the measure word for one head of cattle
一 means one and 头 means head, so 一头 literally stacks to one-head. It counts large animals (一头牛 = one head of cattle) and also marks one end of a stick or a head full of something like sweat or hair.
一 — single horizontal stroke
一 is one of the simplest pictographs in Chinese, depicting a single horizontal line to represent the number one. It has retained essentially the same form since oracle bone script over 3,000 years ago. By extension it also means 'first,' 'whole,' or 'same.'
头 — 页 (head/page) + 豆 (bean, phonetic)
The traditional form 頭 combines 頁 (xié), meaning 'head', with 豆 (dòu) as the phonetic component. 頁 itself originally depicted a person with an emphasized head. The simplified form 头 is a modern shorthand that replaces 豆+頁 with a simpler shape while keeping the same meaning of 'head' or 'top'.