外星人
wài xīng rén · HSK 7
space alien
👽 外 outside + 星 star + 人 person = outside-star person = alien
外 = outside/foreign, 星 = star (as in 星球 planet), 人 = person. A person from outside our star system — an extraterrestrial. wài xīng rén stacks the three parts in that order.
外 — evening 夕 + divination 卜
Originally a compound of 夕 (evening) and 卜 (divination). Ancient Chinese divinations were performed in the morning; doing them at evening (夕) was considered irregular or 'outside' the norm. From this sense of deviation, 外 came to mean 'outside' or 'external'.
人 — pictograph of a standing person
人 is a pictograph showing a person viewed from the side, with two strokes representing the legs and torso of a standing human. In oracle bone script it clearly depicted a figure leaning slightly forward. The meaning has remained 'person' or 'human' throughout its history.