秃
tū · HSK 7
bald
👨🦲 禾 grain + 儿 legs: a grain stalk stripped bare on top = bald, blunt
The grain radical 禾 sits over the legs 儿 of a person, but the top is cut clean off, nothing left up there. That bare-topped sense covers both a bald head and a blunt, tip-less point. Sound: tū, a flat first tone.
秃 — grain 禾 on top + legs 儿 below
秃 depicts a person (儿, legs) with 禾 (grain/plant) on top, originally suggesting a bare head where hair should grow like sprouts. Some scholars read 禾 as phonetic, but the dominant reading is semantic: a head as smooth as a harvested field. The meaning 'bald' or 'bare' has been stable since early scripts.