帮手
bāng shoǔ · HSK 7
helper
🤝 bang + hand = a hand that bangs out work for you, your helper
帮 (bāng) means help, 手 (shǒu) means hand. A helping hand — someone who lends their hand to get things done alongside you.
帮 — 巾 (cloth) + 邦 (country, phonetic)
帮 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The 巾 component means 'cloth' and originally referred to the side strip of a shoe or a cloth border. 邦 (bāng, 'state') supplies the sound. The meaning later extended from 'side/edge' to 'group, gang' and then to the modern verb sense 'to help'.
手 — pictograph of a hand with five fingers
手 is a pictograph showing an open hand with fingers and a wrist. Early bronze and oracle bone forms clearly depict five splayed fingers, which simplified over time into the modern shape. It keeps its original meaning of 'hand' and also serves as a radical in many characters related to hand actions.