关注
guānzhù · HSK 3
follow with interest
👀 关 = close/shut (a gate) + 注 = pour/focus → focus poured onto something
关 originally meant a gate or barrier (now also close/shut), and 注 means to pour or concentrate. Together: your attention is poured toward one thing — you follow it closely.
关 — door 门 + simplified 关 inside
关 is the simplified form of 關. The traditional character showed a gate (門) with a bolt or crossbar inside, depicting a barred door — hence 'to close' or 'shut'. Meaning later extended to 'pass' (a guarded gate), 'barrier', and figuratively 'concern' or 'connection'.
注 — water 氵 + master 主 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 氵 (water) gives the meaning of pouring or flowing, while 主 supplies the sound. The original sense was 'to pour water in,' which extended to 'concentrate, focus' (as in pouring attention) and 'to annotate' (pouring explanation into a text).