摩托
mó tuō · HSK 5
motor
🏍️ 摩托 sounds like 'motor' — direct loanword from English
摩 (mó) + 托 (tuō) was chosen purely for the sound, not the characters' meanings. The same 摩托 root appears in 摩托车 (motorbike) and 摩托艇 (motorboat).
托 — hand radical 扌 + 乇 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 扌 (hand) gives the meaning—actions done with the hands like supporting, holding up, or entrusting—while 乇 supplies the sound. The original sense of physically holding something on the palm extended to figurative uses like 'entrust' or 'rely on'.