徒手 (tú shǒu) — with bare hands; unarmed

Definition

adverb
with bare handsunarmed

Examples

  • 徒手。
    Tā tú shǒu dǎ bài le nà ge duì shǒu.
    He defeated that opponent with bare hands.
  • 徒手。
    Jǐng chá tú shǒu zhì fú le dǎi tú.
    The police subdued the criminal with bare hands.
  • 徒手，。
    Tā tú shǒu pān yán, méi yǒu yòng rèn hé gōng jù.
    He climbed rocks with bare hands, without using any tools.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

徒túbare
手shǒuhand

徒 means empty or bare and 手 means hand, so 徒手 is done with bare hands.

Characters in this word

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
辵辵chuòwalk
Sound part声符shēngfú
土
土tǔ徒tú
Same sound today

徒 originally paired 辵, a walking sign, with 土 to show its sound. The shape later changed into 彳 and 走.

Open 徒 →

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

手 draws a five-fingered human hand: the top line is a bent middle finger, and the horizontal lines show the other four fingers.

Open 手 →

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