护士 (hù shi) — nurse

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

护 combines 扌 (the hand form 手) with 户, which gives the sound hù.

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

The shape 士 comes from a simple drawing of a war axe. The character later came to mean a soldier, officer, or intellectual.