敷く
しく · shiku · JLPT N2 · verb-godan
to spread out
🛏️ Etymology: 敷物 (floor mat) is 敷く + thing, so 敷く means spreading out a mat
敷 — 尃 (fū, phonetic) + 攵 (action)
敷 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The right side 攵 (a hand holding a stick) suggests an action, while 尃 supplies the sound and the idea of spreading or distributing. The original sense was to spread out or apply broadly, which extends to modern meanings like 'to apply' (ointment) or 'to lay out'.