扫墓
sǎo mù · HSK 7
to sweep the tombs
🧹🪦 扫 sweep + 墓 tomb = sweeping the ancestors' graves at Qingming
扫 — hand radical 扌 + broom 帚
A semantic compound: the hand radical 扌 shows the action, while 帚 (broom) gives both the meaning and an approximate sound. The original picture of 帚 depicts a broom held upright, so 扫 literally means 'to wield a broom,' i.e. to sweep.
墓 — grass 艹 + 莫 (phonetic, 'sunset')
A semantic-phonetic compound. The 土 'earth' element at the bottom signals burial mound, while 莫 (originally a sun setting in grass) supplies the sound. The character means 'grave' or 'tomb,' with 莫 also hinting at the sense of life's end.