外来
wàilái · HSK 6
foreign
🛬 外 outside + 来 come = something that comes from outside
Anything foreign literally came from the outside. The two characters spell it out: outer + arrive. A package from abroad comes from outside — wàilái.
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'.
来 — pictograph of a wheat plant with grain heads
来 originally depicted a stalk of wheat with drooping grain heads, and meant 'wheat' in oracle bone script. It was later borrowed phonetically to write the unrelated verb 'to come,' which became its dominant meaning. The original 'wheat' sense was taken over by 麥 (now 麦).