掏
tāo · HSK 6
to fish out
🖐️👜 Sounds like TOW — you tow things out of your pocket with your hand
The radical 扌(hand) does the action. Tāo sounds like 'tow' — you reach in and tow out coins, keys, whatever is buried in there. A scooping, fishing-out motion done by hand.
掏 — hand radical 扌 + 匋 (pottery/phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: the hand radical 扌 gives the meaning of reaching or pulling out with the hand, while 匋 (tao) supplies the sound. Originally referring to scooping or digging things out, it extended to taking objects from a pocket, bag, or hole.