拿走
ná zoǔ · HSK 6
to take away
🫳🚶 ná = grab/hold + zǒu = walk — grab it and walk off
拿 means to take or hold, 走 means to walk or go. Together they form take-away: you grab something and walk off with it. Think of snatching a snack from the table and strolling out the door.
拿 — hand 手 + combine 合
拿 is a semantic compound: 合 (combine, bring together) sits over 手 (hand), giving the idea of hands joining to grasp something. It is a relatively late character that replaced the older 拏 in the meaning 'to take, hold, or seize.' Today it broadly means to take or hold in the hand.
走 — person running 夭 + foot 止
Originally a pictograph of a person with arms swinging (夭) above a foot (止), depicting someone running. The bottom 止 (foot) was later simplified to a form resembling 火 in modern script. The original sense was 'to run,' which still survives in compounds; the everyday meaning shifted to 'to walk' or 'to go.'