收
shōu · HSK 2
receive
📥 收 = hand (又) grabs and pulls in — receive, gather, take back
The right side 攵 derives from a hand striking or grasping; the left 丩 hints at binding or pulling together. Core sense: pulling things in toward yourself — receiving mail, harvesting crops, collecting fees, taking back what's owed.
收 — 丩 (jiū, cord/bind) + 攵 (rap/strike, action)
Originally written 收, this character combines 丩 'twisted cord' as the phonetic with 攵 'a hand holding a stick' as the semantic, depicting the action of binding up captives or gathering things together by force. The core sense 'to gather, collect, harvest' grew naturally from this image of rounding up and tying.