付き合い
つきあい · tsukiai · JLPT N3 · noun
friendship
🍻 付き合い = stick to (付く) + each other (合う): people who stick together
付く means to attach or stick, and 合う means to fit together or do something mutually. Put them together and you get sticking with each other. In office life, tsukiai often means the after-work drinks you join to keep up relationships.
付 — person radical 亻 + hand 寸
付 originally pictured a hand (寸) reaching out to hand something to a person (亻), depicting the act of giving or delivering. The core sense 'to hand over, deliver, pay' has remained stable since ancient bronze inscriptions. It also serves as a phonetic component in characters like 附, 符, and 府.
合 — 乛 (lid/roof) + 口 (mouth)
Originally a pictograph of a lidded vessel — a cover (亼) closing over an opening (口) — giving the core sense of 'come together, join, fit.' From 'fit/match' it extended to 'combine, unite, agree' and to measure-word uses. The reading hé reflects this 'joining' meaning.