结束
jiéshù · HSK 3
end
🏁 结 = tie/knot + 束 = bundle; tying up the bundle = finishing
结 means tie or knot; 束 means bundle or bind. Together they mean to tie off and bind up — the act of closing something out. A project gets 结束 when all loose ends are knotted and bundled away.
结 — silk radical 糸 + lucky 吉 (phonetic)
结 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The silk radical 糸 on the left signals the meaning, since the original sense was tying threads or cords into knots. The right side 吉 (jí) provides the sound. From the literal 'knot' it extended to figurative senses like 'bind,' 'conclude,' or 'form (a bond).'
束 — 木 (tree) with 口 wrapped around middle
Pictograph of a bundle: a tree or sticks (木) tied together with a band or rope (depicted by the enclosing 口 in the middle). The original sense was 'to bind' or 'a bundle,' which extended to meanings like 'to restrain,' 'to control,' and the measure word for bundled things.