提交
tí jiāo · HSK 6
to submit
📤 提 = lift/carry + 交 = hand over → lift it up and hand it over
You carry (提) a document and hand it over (交) to someone in charge. The two halves literally spell out the act of submitting: pick up, then deliver.
提 — hand radical 扌 + 是 (phonetic)
提 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 gives the meaning, since the character originally referred to lifting or carrying something by hand. The right side 是 supplies the sound. From 'lift up' it extended to 'raise (an issue),' 'mention,' and 'bring forward.'
交 — top 亠 + 父-like crossed legs
Originally a pictograph of a person standing with legs crossed, showing the idea of crossing or intersecting. From this concrete image, the meaning extended to abstract senses like 'exchange,' 'interact,' and 'hand over.' Modern uses such as 交流 (exchange) and 交通 (traffic) all trace back to this core notion of crossing.