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I have no idea about this kanji and I don't know if it applies here, but the main component of the vast majority of kanji, originally being from China, was just chosen for its sound. That component (the "phonetic") usually has no relation to the meaning of the character.

What you're talking about is (from Wikipedia):

Kaii-moji (会意文字)

These are compound ideograms, often called "compound indicatives", "associative compounds", or just "ideograms". These are usually a combination of pictograms that combine iconicly to present an overall meaning. An example is the kokuji 峠 (mountain pass) made from 山 (mountain), 上 (up) and 下 (down). Another is 休 (rest) from 人 (person) and 木 (tree). These make up a tiny fraction of modern characters.

But the vast majority of kanji are:

Keisei-moji (形声文字)

These phono-semantic or radical-phonetic compounds, sometimes called "semantic-phonetic", "semasio-phonetic", or "phonetic-ideographic" characters, are by far the largest category, making up about 90% of characters. Typically they are made up of two components, one of which suggests the general category of the meaning or semantic context, and the other approximates the pronunciation. (The pronunciation really relates to the original Chinese, and may now only be distantly detectable in the modern Japanese on'yomi of the kanji. The same is true of the semantic context, which may have changed over the centuries or in the transition from Chinese to Japanese. As a result, it is a common error in folk etymology to fail to recognize a phono-semantic compound, typically instead inventing a compound-indicative explanation.)

(Sorry if you already know about this)

Posted By: tamatama

[p]So recently I've been trying to learn about kanji parts, and I was wondering what the top part of 毒 is called and what it actually is. Does anyone know?

I read that it comes from 生, but this site (which I guess means Jim Breen's dictionary) seems to dissect 毒 as 亠　＋　土　＋　毋。[/p][p]Since the bottom is なかれ、my guess is the etymology is 'not live' -> 'poison.' Any ideas?[/p][p]Also, if anyone can suggest any sites where you can lookup kanji and see their parts and etymology (preferably in Japanese), that would be great.[/p]

Thanks for the link. The etymology description is very brief, but it's always nice to see the seal characters. I guess I'll just call the top いきる.