上头
shàng toú , shàng tou · HSK 7
to go to one's head
🍺 上 up + 头 head = it goes up to your head (booze)
上头 literally stacks 上 (up/on) onto 头 (head): the drink rises up to the head, so you feel heady or tipsy. The same up-the-head logic gives the old senses of pinning a bride's hair up and a courtesan taking her first patron.
上 — horizontal line above a baseline
上 is an indicative character (指事): a short stroke placed above a longer reference line shows the concept of 'above' or 'up'. The earliest oracle-bone forms used two horizontal lines for this; the modern shape added a vertical stroke for clarity. The core meaning of 'upper, above, to ascend' has stayed stable for millennia.
头 — 页 (head/page) + 豆 (bean, phonetic)
The traditional form 頭 combines 頁 (xié), meaning 'head', with 豆 (dòu) as the phonetic component. 頁 itself originally depicted a person with an emphasized head. The simplified form 头 is a modern shorthand that replaces 豆+頁 with a simpler shape while keeping the same meaning of 'head' or 'top'.