付く
つく · tsuku · JLPT N3 · verb-godan
to adjoin
🧲📎 tsuku sounds like stuck: 付く = to get stuck onto something
Say tsuku and stuck in a row and they nearly rhyme. The kanji 付 is 亻 person + 寸 hand, a hand passing something to a person, so it ends up attached to them. The same verb covers dirt sticking to clothes and a light coming on.
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.