反倒
fǎndào · HSK 7
instead
🔄 fǎndào sounds like FAN-DOWN — the fan falls down, but instead it flies up
反 means reverse or opposite, 倒 means to fall or invert. Together they flip expectations: what you thought would happen goes the contrary way. A reversal word built from two reversal parts.
反 — hand 又 under cliff 厂
Originally a pictograph of a hand (又) turning something over against a cliff or slope (厂), depicting the action of flipping or reversing. From this came the core meaning 'to turn over,' which extended to 'opposite,' 'contrary,' and 'rebel against.' The character is purely semantic, with no phonetic component.
倒 — person radical 亻 + 到 (to arrive)
倒 is a semantic-phonetic compound: the person radical 亻 gives meaning (an action done by/to a person), while 到 supplies the sound 'dào'. Originally meaning 'to fall over' (a person toppling), it extended to 'invert, upside down, pour out', as when something falls and spills.