只顾
zhǐ gù · HSK 6
focusing
🔦 zhǐ gù = only + care-about — tunnel focus on just one thing
只 means only/just, 顾 means to care about or attend to. Together they describe someone so locked onto one concern that everything else drops away — like a spotlight that illuminates a single spot.
只 — mouth 口 + bird tail 八
Originally a pictograph showing a bird (口 as body) with its tail feathers (八) spread, meaning a single bird. It was later borrowed phonetically to write the grammatical particle and adverb meaning 'only' or 'just,' which became its dominant modern use.
顾 — page 頁 + cliff 厃 (phonetic 雇)
顧 is a semantic-phonetic compound: 頁 (head) gives the meaning of turning the head to look back, while 雇 supplies the sound. The original sense was 'to turn and gaze,' which extended to 'consider, care for, attend to.' The simplified form 顾 keeps the same structure with 页.