外交
wàijiāo · HSK 3
diplomacy
🤝 外 (outside) + 交 (exchange/interact) = dealings with outsiders
外 means outside or foreign; 交 means to exchange, interact, or hand over. Together they describe formal interactions with foreign parties — diplomacy. The same 交 appears in 交流 (exchange) and 交易 (transaction).
外 — evening 夕 + divination 卜
Originally a compound of 夕 (evening) and 卜 (divination). Ancient Chinese divinations were performed in the morning; doing them at evening (夕) was considered irregular or 'outside' the norm. From this sense of deviation, 外 came to mean 'outside' or 'external'.
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.