豁
huá , huō , huò · HSK 7
sacrifice
🏞️ holds 谷 (valley) on the right — a wide gap or opening cut through the land
The 谷 (valley) part anchors the core sense of a wide opening or cleft. The stake-all meaning comes from 豁出去 (huō chuqu), to throw open everything and go all out, holding nothing back.
豁 — valley 谷 + harm 害 (phonetic)
A phono-semantic compound: 谷 (valley) gives the meaning of an open, hollow space, while 害 supplies the sound. The original sense was a wide, opening valley, which extended to ideas of openness, clearing away, and being open-minded. The reading huō reflects sudden opening (as in 豁出去), while huò appears in 豁达 'open-hearted'.