剥ぐ
はぐ · hagu · JLPT N1 · verb-godan
to peel off
🍌 剥 has the knife radical 刂: you strip or tear something off, like a blade peeling a surface
The kanji 剥 carries the knife radical 刂, matching its sense of forcibly stripping something away. Say hagu, close to English 'hug', but you are tearing off, not embracing.
剥 — 录 (carve) + 刂 (knife radical)
剥 is a semantic compound: 刂 (knife) on the right shows the action, while 录 on the left originally depicted carving or scraping. Together they convey peeling or stripping something off with a blade. The two readings split usage: bāo in everyday speech (peel fruit), bō in compounds (剥削 exploit).