练
liàn · HSK 2
practice
🧵 绞 (silk) + 柬 (select) — refining silk by repeated work; now means practice
练 originally meant boiling and scouring raw silk to soften it — repeated treatment to refine. The silk radical 纟signals the textile origin; 柬 gives the sound (liàn-adjacent) and a sense of sorting/selecting. Repeated refinement → practice, drill.
练 — silk radical 纟 + 柬 (select)
练 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The silk radical 纟 gives the meaning, originally referring to boiling raw silk to soften and whiten it. 柬 (jiǎn, 'to select') supplies the sound. From the idea of repeatedly processing silk, the meaning extended to 'practice, train, drill'.