抄袭
chāo xí · HSK 7
to plagiarize
📋 CHAO = copy, XI = raid — copying someone's work is a sneak attack
抄 alone means to copy or transcribe. 袭 means to raid or attack by surprise. Plagiarism is framed as a surprise raid on someone else's words — you sneak in and copy their work.
抄 — hand radical 扌 + 少 (shǎo, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: the hand radical 扌 signals an action done by hand, while 少 supplies the sound. The original sense was to grab or scoop up by hand, which extended to 'copy out' (transcribe by hand) and later to stir-frying — quickly tossing food with a hand motion.