注
ちゅう · chuu · JLPT N3 · noun
note
📝 注 = water 氵 + master 主: the master pours extra words into the margin
注 first meant to pour or channel water onto one spot. A note does the same with words: it fixes your attention on one point in the text. Chuu sounds like chew, and a note helps you chew over a hard passage.
注 — water 氵 + master 主 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 氵 (water) gives the meaning of pouring or flowing, while 主 supplies the sound. The original sense was 'to pour water in,' which extended to 'concentrate, focus' (as in pouring attention) and 'to annotate' (pouring explanation into a text).