细胞
xìbāo · HSK 6
cell
🔬 xì (fine/thin) + bāo (wrap) = tiny wrapped package — a cell
Each cell is a fine little package wrapped in a membrane. The 'shee-baow' sound echoes 'she bow' — she takes a bow so small you need a microscope to see it.
细 — silk radical 糹 + 田 (field)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The silk radical 糹 supplies the meaning, since silk threads are fine and thin, giving 细 its sense of 'thin, fine, slender.' The right side 田 originally wrote 囟 (fontanel) as a phonetic hint, later simplified to 田 in modern script.