剥く
むく · muku · JLPT N3 · verb-godan
to peel
🍊🔪 muku sounds like moo-coat: remove the fruit's coat, the knife radical 刂 helps
The right side of 剥 is 刂, the knife radical, which appears in cutting verbs like 切る and 刻む. Say muku as moo-coat: peeling means taking off a fruit's coat. Common uses are りんごを剥く (peel an apple) and 皮を剥く (strip the skin).
剥 — 录 (carve) + 刂 (knife radical)
剥 is a semantic compound: 刂 (knife) on the right shows the action, while 录 on the left originally depicted carving or scraping. Together they convey peeling or stripping something off with a blade. The two readings split usage: bāo in everyday speech (peel fruit), bō in compounds (剥削 exploit).