丢人
diū rén · HSK 7
to lose face
😳 diū rén = lose + person — you lose your personhood in shame
丢 means to lose or throw away, 人 means person. When you diū rén, you throw away your standing as a person — total embarrassment. The sound diū even echoes a dismissive 'dew' flicked off.
丢 — 丿 stroke + 去 (to go away)
丢 is a relatively late character formed by adding a downward stroke 丿 on top of 去 ('to go/leave'). The composition visually suggests something departing or slipping away, reinforcing the meaning 'to lose' or 'to throw away'. It is not an ancient pictograph but a modern semantic compound.
人 — pictograph of a standing person
人 is a pictograph showing a person viewed from the side, with two strokes representing the legs and torso of a standing human. In oracle bone script it clearly depicted a figure leaning slightly forward. The meaning has remained 'person' or 'human' throughout its history.