手伝う
てつだう · tetsudau · JLPT N4 · verb-godan
to help
🤝 手伝う = hand (手) + pass along (伝): to lend a hand
手 means hand and 伝 means to transmit or pass along. Helping is literally passing your hand to someone, just like the English idiom lend a hand. The reading te-tsuda-u starts with te, the usual word for hand.
手 — pictograph of a hand with five fingers
手 is a pictograph showing an open hand with fingers and a wrist. Early bronze and oracle bone forms clearly depict five splayed fingers, which simplified over time into the modern shape. It keeps its original meaning of 'hand' and also serves as a radical in many characters related to hand actions.