手动
shoǔ dòng · HSK 7
manually operated
✋⚙️ 手 hand + 动 move = moved by hand, not by motor = manual
手 shǒu is hand (as in 手机 hand-machine = phone); 动 dòng is move or motion (as in 运动 motion = exercise). A hand-moved gear-change is a manual one, the opposite of automatic.
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.
动 — force 力 + heavy/重 (simplified from 動)
The traditional form 動 combines 重 (heavy) as the phonetic with 力 (force/strength) as the semantic, suggesting the effort needed to move something heavy. The simplified form 动 replaces 重 with 云, keeping 力 to convey action and motion.