顾客
gùkè · HSK 2
customer
🛍️ 顾 (look after) + 客 (guest) = the guest a shop looks after
顾 means to attend to or look after; 客 means guest or visitor. A 顾客 is the guest a business attends to — a customer. Same 客 appears in 客人 (guest) and 乘客 (passenger).
顾 — page 頁 + cliff 厃 (phonetic 雇)
顧 is a semantic-phonetic compound: 頁 (head) gives the meaning of turning the head to look back, while 雇 supplies the sound. The original sense was 'to turn and gaze,' which extended to 'consider, care for, attend to.' The simplified form 顾 keeps the same structure with 页.