拉锁
lā suǒ · HSK 7
zipper
🤐 拉 pull + 锁 lock = a zipper you pull to lock things shut
拉 (lā) means pull and 锁 (suǒ) means lock; a zipper is the thing you pull to lock a bag or jacket closed. The pull-then-lock pairing maps straight onto how a zip fastens.
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.
锁 — metal radical 钅 + 𫔑 (small/phonetic)
锁 means 'lock' or 'chain.' The metal radical 钅 (金) signals a metal object, while the right side originally depicted small linked rings, hinting at both meaning and sound. Early locks were chains of small metal pieces, so the character paints a picture of linked metal.