乱
luàn · HSK 3
mix up
🌀 乱 = 舌 (tongue) + 乚 — tangled threads being sorted; chaos
Etymology: depicts hands untangling a snarl of silk threads on a frame, with 乚 as the tool. The core sense is disorder or confusion, extended to riot, arbitrary, and mixing things up indiscriminately.
乱 — hand 又 + tangled silk 𠬪/乿 component
乱 is the simplified form of 亂. The traditional character depicts hands above and below untangling silk threads on a frame, with 乙 on the right. It originally meant 'to put tangled threads in order,' but came to mean both 'disorder' and 'to govern chaos.'