捕まえる
つかまえる · tsukamaeru · JLPT N4 · verb-ichidan
to catch
🪤👮 捕 = hand 扌 + 甫: lay a hand on it. Tsuka- echoes tsukamu, to grab.
The left side of 捕 is the hand radical 扌, so the kanji is literally a hand seizing something. The reading tsukamaeru shares its root with tsukamu (to grab), plus -aeru. Same verb covers catching a bug and police arresting a suspect.
捕 — hand radical 扌 + 甫 (phonetic)
捕 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 (手) signals an action done with the hand, while 甫 supplies the sound (related to bǔ/fǔ). Together they convey 'to seize' or 'to catch' with the hand, as in capturing a person or animal.