落下
らっか · rakka · JLPT N1 · noun
fall
🍂 落 = fall, 下 = down: 落下 literally means 'fall down', just like a leaf dropping in autumn.
落 (raku) means to fall or drop; 下 (ka/shita) means down. Together they describe something coming down under gravity, from a leaf to a dropped phone.
落 — grass radical 艹 + 洛 (water 氵 + 各)
Originally written with the grass radical 艹 over 洛, depicting leaves falling from plants. 洛 serves as the phonetic component (giving the luò sound) while 艹 supplies the meaning of vegetation. The sense extended from 'leaves falling' to the general meaning of falling, dropping, or settling down.
下 — horizontal line 一 + mark below
下 is an indicative character: a long horizontal line represents a reference level, and a shorter stroke placed beneath it points to the area below. The original meaning 'below, down' comes directly from this spatial diagram, and it later extended to verbs like 'descend' and 'lower'.