停止
tíngzhǐ · HSK 3
cease
🛑 停 = 亻person + 亭 pavilion; 止 = foot. A person halts at the pavilion, feet still.
停 (tíng) means halt — a person (亻) stopping at a pavilion (亭) to rest. 止 (zhǐ) is a pictograph of a foot, meaning stop. Together 停止 = cease, desist.
停 — person 亻 + pavilion 亭
A semantic-phonetic compound: 亻 (person) gives the meaning, while 亭 (pavilion, also pronounced tíng) supplies the sound. The image is of a person stopping at a roadside pavilion to rest, which yields the modern senses 'to stop, halt, park.'
止 — pictograph of a foot/toe
止 originally depicted a human foot with toes, shown as a footprint on the ground. From this concrete image of a foot it came to mean 'to stop' or 'halt' — the place where a step ends. It also serves as a component in many characters relating to feet, walking, or stopping, such as 步 and 正.