About
The character 掴 means to slap, strike, or grasp with the hand. It is a phono-semantic compound: the left radical 扌 (hand) indicates the action, while the right side provides the pronunciation. In the traditional form 摑, the phonetic component is 國 (guó), which contains 或 inside the enclosure 囗. The simplified form replaces this with 国 (guó), containing 玉 within 囗, simplifying the structure while preserving the phonetic clue. Historically, the meaning has narrowed from a general grasp to specifically denote a physical strike, such as a slap to the face.