交付
jiāo fù · HSK 7
to deliver
📦🤝 交 (hand over) + 付 (pay/give) = both halves mean to pass something to someone
交 carries the sense of exchange or crossing-over, and 付 means to pay or hand off. Stacked together they double down on the act of handing something across to a recipient: a delivery.
交 — top 亠 + 父-like crossed legs
Originally a pictograph of a person standing with legs crossed, showing the idea of crossing or intersecting. From this concrete image, the meaning extended to abstract senses like 'exchange,' 'interact,' and 'hand over.' Modern uses such as 交流 (exchange) and 交通 (traffic) all trace back to this core notion of crossing.
付 — person radical 亻 + hand 寸
付 originally pictured a hand (寸) reaching out to hand something to a person (亻), depicting the act of giving or delivering. The core sense 'to hand over, deliver, pay' has remained stable since ancient bronze inscriptions. It also serves as a phonetic component in characters like 附, 符, and 府.