所持

しょじ · shoji · JLPT N1 · noun

possession

所 — door 戶 (left) + axe 斤 (right)
Originally a sound: an axe (斤) chopping wood near a door (戶), with 戶 also hinting at the pronunciation. Over time it was borrowed to mean 'place' or 'location,' and later became a grammatical particle nominalizing verbs ('that which…'). The concrete 'chopping' sense faded entirely.

持 — hand 扌 + temple 寺 (phonetic)
持 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 carries the meaning 'to hold' or 'grasp', while 寺 supplies the sound (it once read close to chí). Originally depicting a hand holding something firmly, it broadened to mean 'maintain', 'support', or 'keep' over time.

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