お手洗い
おてあらい · otearai · JLPT N5 · noun
toilet
🚽🧼 お + 手 (te, hand) + 洗い (arai, washing) = the hand-washing place
Polite お plus 手 (hand) and 洗い from 洗う (to wash). Japanese names the restroom by its cleanest activity, much like English washroom. Say it in pieces: o-te-arai, honourable hand-wash.
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.
洗 — water radical 氵 + 先 (xiān)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The water radical 氵 indicates the meaning (washing with water), while 先 supplies the sound, originally close to xiǎn/xǐ. The character has long meant 'to wash' or 'rinse,' and by extension 'to cleanse' or 'wash away.'