应付
yìngfù · HSK 7
cope with
应 = respond + 付 = hand over; you respond and pay out just enough to cope
应 (respond/should) plus 付 (pay/hand over) literally means meeting a demand by handing something over. That sense of doing the minimum to get by gives 应付 its 'cope with, deal with, do half-heartedly' range.
应 — 广 (shelter) + 心 (heart) + 隹 (bird)
Originally written 應, this character combined a phonetic component with 心 (heart) to suggest 'responding from the heart' or 'answering a call'. The simplified form 应 keeps the top portion. Over time it broadened from 'respond/answer' to also mean 'should' or 'ought to'.
付 — person radical 亻 + hand 寸
付 originally pictured a hand (寸) reaching out to hand something to a person (亻), depicting the act of giving or delivering. The core sense 'to hand over, deliver, pay' has remained stable since ancient bronze inscriptions. It also serves as a phonetic component in characters like 附, 符, and 府.