手脚
shǒujiǎo · HSK 7
motions
✋🦶 手 (hand) + 脚 (foot) = limbs in motion; secret hand-and-foot moves became underhand tricks
Literally hand-and-foot. The same word covers honest movement and dishonest maneuvering: doing 手脚 to something means meddling with it on the sly, the way a cheat works with quiet hands and feet.
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.
脚 — meat radical 月(肉) + 却 (phonetic)
脚 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 月 is the 'flesh/body' radical (from 肉), marking it as a body part. The right side 却 supplies the sound. Originally it referred to the lower leg or shin, and later broadened to mean 'foot' or 'leg' generally.