pound, husk
搗 centers on striking or crushing something repeatedly with a tool, especially to separate grain from its husk. The core idea is pounding or beating to process a material.
搗 combines 扌 (hand) with 島, which likely contributes the sound トウ. The character expresses pounding or striking with the hand, as in husking grain.
The hand radical 扌 beside 島 (island) suggests a hand pounding grain on an island, separating the husk from the edible part.
For トウ, imagine pounding grain with a toe: toe -> トウ, and your foot strikes the grain to husk it.
seventy percent polished rice
30% polished rice
light-brown rice; half-polished rice; partially polishing rice
half-polished rice
soldier crab (Mictyris brevidactylus)
freshly pounded (rice cake); fresh from the mortar
to pound together; to mix together
polished rice
mortar (for pounding rice)
to hull (rice, barley, etc.); to pound (rice); to polish (rice); to stamp (ore)
Ecklonia cava (species of brown alga)
rice polishing (removing the shell of brown rice to leave white rice)
stamp mill; stamping mill; stamp battery
rice polishing
click beetle; skipjack (beetle of family Elateridae)
(Japanese) red click beetle (Denticollis nipponicus)
to pound (rice, etc.)
Ecklonia cava (species of brown alga)
polishing wheat