挖
wā · HSK 6
scoop up
🥄 hand (扌) reaching into a hole (穴) — scooping out
The left radical 扌means hand. The right side contains 穴 (hole/cave). A hand going into a hole is the act of scooping or digging something out. The sound wā echoes the effort grunt of digging.
挖 — hand radical 扌 + 穵 (wā)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 indicates the meaning—an action done with the hand, namely digging or scooping. The right side 穵 supplies the sound 'wā'. The character has long meant to dig out, excavate, or hollow something.