了结
liǎo jié · HSK 7
to settle
🪢✅ 了 (done/finished) + 结 (knot/tie) = tie up the last knot, wind it up
结 by itself means a knot or to tie; adding 了 (complete, finished) gives the sense of tying off the final loose end. So 了结 is bringing a matter to a tidy close: settling, concluding, winding things up.
了 — pictograph of swaddled child with no arms
了 originally depicted an infant wrapped in swaddling cloth, with the arms hidden or bound — a variant of 子 (child) without the arms. From 'finished wrapping' it extended to mean 'completed' or 'finished,' which is its main modern grammatical use as an aspect particle marking completed action.
结 — silk radical 糸 + lucky 吉 (phonetic)
结 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The silk radical 糸 on the left signals the meaning, since the original sense was tying threads or cords into knots. The right side 吉 (jí) provides the sound. From the literal 'knot' it extended to figurative senses like 'bind,' 'conclude,' or 'form (a bond).'