委托
wěi tuō · HSK 5
to entrust
📜 委 = entrust + 托 = support; together: hand over a task for someone to carry
委 means to delegate or appoint; 托 means to support or hold up. Combined, 委托 is the act of handing responsibility to another party who will hold it up on your behalf — commissioning or entrusting a task.
托 — hand radical 扌 + 乇 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 扌 (hand) gives the meaning—actions done with the hands like supporting, holding up, or entrusting—while 乇 supplies the sound. The original sense of physically holding something on the palm extended to figurative uses like 'entrust' or 'rely on'.