削る
けずる · kezuru · JLPT N2 · verb-godan
to cut down little by little
🔪 Knife radical 刂 + 肖: cut away small bits with a knife, little by little
The left-side radical 刂 is the knife component, which signals cutting. Use it for sharpening a pencil or trimming a budget or percentage bit by bit.
削 — 肖 (phonetic) + 刂 knife radical
削 is a semantic-phonetic compound: the knife radical 刂 gives the meaning of cutting or paring, while 肖 (xiāo) supplies the sound. The original sense was to pare or shave with a blade, which extended to figurative meanings like to reduce, strip away, or cut down.