手头
shoǔ toú · HSK 7
in hand (e.g. cash)
🤲💰 手头 = hand (手) + head/end (头); the cash at your hand's end, what you've got on you right now
手 means hand and 头 marks a spot or end. 手头 literally is the hand-end, meaning the resources within reach right now, often cash on hand. Saying 手头紧 (tight at the hand-end) means short on money.
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.
头 — 页 (head/page) + 豆 (bean, phonetic)
The traditional form 頭 combines 頁 (xié), meaning 'head', with 豆 (dòu) as the phonetic component. 頁 itself originally depicted a person with an emphasized head. The simplified form 头 is a modern shorthand that replaces 豆+頁 with a simpler shape while keeping the same meaning of 'head' or 'top'.