摘
zhāi · HSK 5
to pick
🍎 摘 = hand 扌 + 啇 (root/stem); the hand that plucks from a stem
扌 is the hand radical; 啇 supplies the sound (similar to dí/zhāi) and hints at a base or stem. So 摘 literally combines hand + stem-root — the action of picking fruit or flowers off a stem, and by extension borrowing or excerpting.
摘 — hand radical 扌 + 啇 (dí, phonetic)
摘 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 signals the meaning—an action done with the hand, namely plucking or picking (fruit, flowers). The right side 啇 supplies the sound, historically close to 'zhāi'. From 'pluck' it extended to 'select' or 'extract', as in 摘要 (summary, literally 'plucked essentials').