拉开
lā kāi · HSK 4
to pull open
🪟 拉 (pull) + 开 (open) = pull open, pull apart
拉 means to pull and 开 means to open or apart. Together 拉开 covers pulling something open (curtains, a drawer) and pulling things apart to create distance — hence also to space out or widen a gap.
拉 — hand radical 扌 + 立 (stand, phonetic)
拉 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 indicates an action done with the hand, while 立 (lì, 'stand') supplies the sound, shifted to lā. The original sense is to pull or drag with the hand, which remains its core meaning today.
开 — two hands 廾 + door 门 (open gate)
Originally written 開, showing two hands (廾) lifting the bar (一) off a gate (門) to open it. The simplified form 开 keeps the two-hands element and drops the gate. Core meaning 'to open' extended to 'start, operate, bloom'.