搁浅
gē qiǎn · HSK 7
to be stranded
🚢 搁 (place/set down) + 浅 (shallow) = set down in the shallows = run aground
搁 means to put or set something down; 浅 means shallow water. A ship that gets 'set down in the shallows' is stranded. The figurative sense extends to plans or projects that get stuck and can't move forward.
搁 — hand radical 扌 + 阁 (gé)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 signals an action done with the hand, while 阁 (gé, pavilion) supplies the sound. The original sense 'to place, to put down' extends naturally to 'to set aside, to shelve,' and figuratively 'to delay.'
浅 — water radical 氵 + 戔 (small/thin)
浅 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The water radical 氵 gives the meaning (relating to water), while 戔 (originally depicting small or slight things) supplies the sound and reinforces the sense of 'little'. Together they mean 'shallow water', later extended to 'shallow' or 'superficial' in general.