棘手
jí shoǔ · HSK 7
intractable
🌵🤚 棘 thorn + 手 hand = grabbing a thornbush bare-handed; a problem too prickly to handle
棘 means bramble or thorn and 手 means hand, so 棘手 is literally thorn-hand: a task that pricks you the moment you touch it. Used for problems that are tricky or intractable to deal with.
手 — pictograph of a hand with five fingers
手 is a pictograph showing an open hand with fingers and a wrist. Early bronze and oracle bone forms clearly depict five splayed fingers, which simplified over time into the modern shape. It keeps its original meaning of 'hand' and also serves as a radical in many characters related to hand actions.