不好意思
bùhǎoyìsī · HSK 2
embarrassed
😳 不好意思 = not + good + meaning/intent — 'my intent isn't good', i.e. sorry/embarrassed
Literally 'not-good-meaning': a polite way to say your intention or situation isn't quite right, hence 'excuse me' or 'embarrassed'. 意思 (yìsī) on its own means meaning/intent, so the whole phrase softens an apology or awkward moment.
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'.
好 — woman 女 + child 子
好 is an associative compound showing a woman 女 beside a child 子, depicting a mother with her baby. From this image of maternal affection it came to mean 'good, fine, pleasing.' The reading hǎo means 'good'; read hào it means 'to like.'