筹码
chóumǎ · HSK 7
bargaining chip
🎰🪙 Sounds like CHEW-MA — ma chews her poker chips when she bluffs
筹 means tally or counter, 码 means code or number. Together they form counting tokens — the chips you stack and trade at a poker table.
筹 — bamboo radical 竹 + 壽 (longevity, phonetic)
Originally written with the bamboo radical over 壽, 筹 depicted small bamboo sticks used as counting tallies or chips in ancient China. From this concrete sense of 'counting rod' it extended to mean 'to count, plan, or scheme,' as seen in modern words like 筹划 (plan) and 筹码 (chip, bargaining counter).
码 — stone radical 石 + 马 (mǎ, horse, phonetic)
码 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The stone radical 石 hints at the original meaning: a small stone or weight used for counting or measuring. 马 supplies the sound mǎ. Over time the meaning broadened to 'numeral, code, yard (unit),' as in 号码 (number) and 密码 (password).