偷窥
toū kuī · HSK 7
to act as voyeur
👀 偷 tōu = steal/secretly + 窥 kuī = peek; secretly peek = peep
偷 means to steal or do something on the sly, and 窥 means to peer through a gap. Together: secret peering — peeping. The 穴 radical atop 窥 marks a hole or cave, the gap a voyeur peers through.
偷 — person radical 亻 + 俞 (yú, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: the person radical 亻 signals a human action, while 俞 supplies the sound. Originally 偷 meant 'careless' or 'perfunctory,' and over time it shifted to its modern sense of 'to steal' or 'stealthily.'