歌词
gēcí · HSK 6
lyric
🎵 歌词 = 歌 (song) + 词 (words) — words of a song
歌 means song and 词 means words or lyrics. Together 歌词 literally reads as song-words, which is exactly what lyrics are: the written words sung in a song.
歌 — 哥 (phonetic 'gē') + 欠 (open mouth)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The right side 欠 depicts a person with an open mouth, supplying the meaning of singing or vocalizing. The left side 哥 gives the sound 'gē'. Together they form the verb and noun for 'song' or 'to sing'.
词 — speech radical 讠 (言) + 司 sī (phonetic)
词 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 讠 (simplified form of 言 'speech/words') gives the meaning, marking it as something related to language. The right side 司 supplies the sound, originally close to 'sī/cí'. Together it came to mean 'word', 'phrase', or a lyric/poem form.