掐
qiā · HSK 7
to pinch
🤏🌸 qiā sounds like keyah — a quick karate keyah pinch that nips the flower off
掐 — hand radical 扌 + 臽 (qiàn, pit/trap)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 gives the meaning, since 掐 describes an action done with the fingers — pinching, nipping, or digging in with a fingernail. The right side 臽 supplies the sound, originally depicting someone falling into a pit, here borrowed purely for pronunciation.