总而言之
zǒng ér yán zhī · HSK 7
in short
总(sum up) + 而(and) + 言(speak) + 之(it) = summing up and speaking it = in short
A four-character set phrase: 总 means to sum up or總 general, 而 links it, 言 is to speak, 之 is a classical object word. Together they signal you are about to wrap a long point into one brief conclusion.
总 — top 丷 + 口 + 心 (heart radical)
总 is the simplified form of 總. The traditional form combined 糸 (silk threads) with 悤 as phonetic, originally meaning to gather or tie threads together. From 'bundling threads' the meaning extended to 'gather all,' 'general,' 'overall,' and 'always.'
而 — pictograph of beard/whiskers hanging from chin
Originally a pictograph of a beard or facial hair hanging below the chin, visible clearly in oracle bone and bronze script forms. The beard meaning was lost early, and the character was borrowed phonetically to write the grammatical conjunction 'and/but/yet'. This connective use has been standard since classical Chinese.
之 — foot 止 above ground line 一
Originally a pictograph of a foot (止) stepping forward from a baseline, meaning 'to go' or 'to proceed'. Over time the concrete 'going' sense faded, and 之 was borrowed as a grammatical particle marking possession ('of') or as a pronoun ('it'), which became its dominant use in Classical Chinese.