挑起
tiǎo qǐ · HSK 7
to provoke
🔥 挑 poke/stir + 起 rise up = poke trouble up into the open → stir up, incite
挑 (tiǎo) means to poke or stir with a stick; 起 (qǐ) means to rise or get going. Together they describe poking something until it rises up — provoking or stirring up conflict. Sound: tiǎo qǐ, a sharp tee-ow chee.
挑 — hand radical 扌 + 兆 (zhào, omen)
A semantic-phonetic compound: the hand radical 扌 signals a hand action, while 兆 supplies the sound. The original sense was to lift or carry on a shoulder pole, which extended to picking out, selecting, and stirring up — hence today's meanings 'to choose' (tiāo) and 'to provoke' (tiǎo).
起 — 走 (run) + 己 (self/phonetic)
起 combines 走 'run/walk' as the meaning component with 己 as the phonetic component. The 走 element suggests movement of the body, giving the core sense of rising up or starting to move. From there it extended to meanings like 'get up,' 'begin,' and 'arise.'