删除
shānchú · HSK 7
delete
🗑️ 删 = knife (刂) cutting words off bamboo slips (册); 除 = remove
删 — 册 (bamboo slips) + 刂 (knife)
删 originally depicted a knife (刂) cutting bamboo slips bound together as a book (册). In ancient China, texts were written on bamboo strips, and errors were scraped or cut away with a knife. The character thus came to mean 'to delete' or 'to edit out.'
除 — left ear/mound 阝 + surplus 余
除 combines the 'mound/steps' radical 阝 (originally 阜, a hill) with 余 as the phonetic. It first meant the steps of a palace, then extended to 'remove' or 'clear away' (as one sweeps steps clean), and later to mathematical 'divide.'