吹了
chuī le · HSK 7
to have not succeeded
💨💀 Blow + completed = it blew away, gone, failed
吹 means to blow. Add 了 and the blowing is done — whatever it was got blown apart. A deal blew up, a plan blew over, someone kicked the bucket. All finished, all busted.
吹 — mouth 口 + lack/yawn 欠
吹 is a semantic compound. 口 (mouth) shows the action involves the mouth, while 欠 depicts a person with an open mouth exhaling or yawning. Together they vividly suggest blowing air out, the core meaning 'to blow.'
了 — pictograph of swaddled child with no arms
了 originally depicted an infant wrapped in swaddling cloth, with the arms hidden or bound — a variant of 子 (child) without the arms. From 'finished wrapping' it extended to mean 'completed' or 'finished,' which is its main modern grammatical use as an aspect particle marking completed action.