打捞
dǎ lāo · HSK 7
to salvage
🎣🚢 打 (hit/strike) + 捞 (scoop up) = strike at the water and scoop things out
dǎ lāo sounds a bit like 'da law' — the law of the sea says you must salvage what sinks. 打 means to strike or act on something, 捞 means to scoop or fish out, together they form the action of dredging or recovering from water.
打 — hand radical 扌 + nail 丁
打 combines the hand radical 扌 (action with the hand) with 丁 (originally a nail), suggesting striking or hitting with the hand. 丁 also serves as a phonetic hint in older readings. The meaning broadened from 'to strike' to a general verb for many hand-based actions, like 打电话 'make a phone call'.
捞 — hand radical 扌 + 劳 láo (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 indicates the meaning—an action done with the hand, namely scooping or fishing something out of liquid. The right side 劳 (láo) supplies the sound. Simplified from 撈, where 勞 served the same phonetic role.