不够
bù goù · HSK 2
not enough
不 (not) + 够 (enough) — literally 'not enough'
不 negates; 够 means enough/sufficient. Together they form the straightforward compound 'not enough'. Use for quantity, quality, or ability falling short: 时间不够 = time is insufficient.
不 — single pictograph; bird flying upward
Originally a pictograph in oracle bone script, traditionally interpreted as a bird flying up toward the sky and unable to come down, suggesting negation or refusal. Over time it became the standard negation word in Chinese, used before verbs and adjectives to mean 'not'.
够 — 句 (phonetic) + 多 (semantic 'much')
够 is a semantic-phonetic compound. 多 ('many, much') gives the meaning of sufficiency or abundance, while 句 (gōu/jù) supplies the sound. Originally written 夠 with the same parts reversed, it came to mean 'enough' or 'sufficient' in modern usage.