黑手
hēishǒu · HSK 7
Blackman
🖤✋ 黑手 = 黑 black + 手 hand; the hidden hand behind dirty dealings
黑 (hēi) means black and 手 (shǒu) means hand. Together a black hand is the secret schemer or criminal mastermind pulling strings out of sight, like the slang black hand for an underworld operator.
黑 — top 里 over 灬 (fire) — soot from flame
Originally a pictograph of a person whose face was blackened by smoke from a fire, with the lower 灬 representing flames and the upper part showing soot stains. Over time the form was regularized into the modern shape, and the meaning broadened from 'soot-blackened' to the general color black.
手 — pictograph of a hand with five fingers
手 is a pictograph showing an open hand with fingers and a wrist. Early bronze and oracle bone forms clearly depict five splayed fingers, which simplified over time into the modern shape. It keeps its original meaning of 'hand' and also serves as a radical in many characters related to hand actions.