含む
ふくむ · fukumu · JLPT N3 · verb-godan
to include
🐹 含 = 今 (now) + 口 (mouth): what the mouth holds right now
含む first meant to keep something in your mouth without swallowing it. From there it came to mean to contain or include. As a sound hook, fukumu echoes fukuramu (膨らむ, to swell), like cheeks swollen with food.
含 — mouth 口 + 今 (jīn, phonetic)
含 is a phono-semantic compound. The 口 (mouth) component gives the meaning — holding something in the mouth — while 今 supplies the sound. From the literal sense of keeping something inside the mouth, it extended to mean 'contain', 'include', or 'hold within'.