曲げる
まげる · mageru · JLPT N2 · verb-ichidan
to bend
🪝 曲 = crooked or curved; 曲げる = make something crooked, so to bend it
The げる ending marks a transitive verb, so you act on an object: 針金を曲げる, bend the wire. Its intransitive partner 曲がる means the thing bends or turns by itself.
曲 — pictograph of a bent carpenter's tool or curved object
曲 is a pictograph showing a bent or curved shape, originally depicting a carpenter's measuring tool or a curved frame. From this concrete image of bending came the abstract senses of 'crooked,' 'wrong,' and 'tune/melody' (since songs follow winding contours). The reading qū carries the bending senses, while qǔ means 'song.'