救治

jiù zhì · HSK 7

to rescue and give medical treatment

🚑 救治 = 救 rescue + 治 treat (cure); together: save someone and give them medical care

救 is the rescue/save character (as in 救命 save-a-life); 治 means to treat or cure (as in 治疗 treatment). Stack them and you get pulling someone from danger and then healing them.

救 — 求 (seek/phonetic) + 攵 (strike/action)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The right side 攵 (a hand holding a stick) gives the action sense of intervening or stopping, while 求 supplies the sound 'jiu'. Originally meaning to halt or stop something bad, it extended to 'rescue, save, aid'.

治 — water radical 氵 + 台 (phonetic)
治 originally referred to the name of a river, written with the water radical 氵 for meaning and 台 as the phonetic component. From 'managing rivers' (flood control), the meaning broadened to 'govern, regulate, manage,' and later 'cure, heal' — all senses of bringing something unruly under control.

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