揉
roú · HSK 7
to knead
🤲 扌(hand) + 柔(soft) = soft hands working dough → knead, massage, rub
The 扌 hand radical plus 柔 soft gives the sense of hands pressing something pliable. Sound roú even echoes 柔 (róu, soft), so the phonetic does double duty as a meaning clue.
揉 — hand radical 扌 + soft 柔
A semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 indicates a manual action, while 柔 (soft, pliant) supplies both the sound and the sense of softness. Together they depict the action of rubbing or kneading something soft with the hands.