仔细
zǐxì · HSK 5
careful
🔍 仔细 = 仔 (child) + 细 (fine/thin) — child-like attention to fine detail
仔 means 'young/child' and 细 means 'fine, thin, detailed'. Together: the kind of fine-grained attention a careful child gives to small things. Used as 'careful' or 'meticulous'.
细 — silk radical 糹 + 田 (field)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The silk radical 糹 supplies the meaning, since silk threads are fine and thin, giving 细 its sense of 'thin, fine, slender.' The right side 田 originally wrote 囟 (fontanel) as a phonetic hint, later simplified to 田 in modern script.