回头
huítóu · HSK 5
turn round
🔄 回 = return + 头 = head; literally 'return the head' = turn around
回 means return/circle back, 头 means head. Together 'return-head' = swivel your head back, hence turn around or look back. The figurative sense 'repent' extends from turning back from a wrong path.
回 — enclosure 囗 + smaller 囗 inside
回 is a pictograph of a swirling whirlpool or coiled spiral, shown as nested squares in modern form. The original meaning was 'to revolve' or 'turn around,' which extended to 'return' and 'a time/occurrence.' It also appears as a phonetic in characters like 茴 and 廻.
头 — 页 (head/page) + 豆 (bean, phonetic)
The traditional form 頭 combines 頁 (xié), meaning 'head', with 豆 (dòu) as the phonetic component. 頁 itself originally depicted a person with an emphasized head. The simplified form 头 is a modern shorthand that replaces 豆+頁 with a simpler shape while keeping the same meaning of 'head' or 'top'.