多心
duō xīn · HSK 7
oversensitive
🤨 duo xin = many + hearts — too many hearts overthink everything
Having multiple hearts (多心) means your feelings pull in every direction at once, making you read too much into things and suspect hidden motives where none exist.
多 — two 夕 (evening) stacked
多 originally depicted two pieces of meat (夕, a variant of 肉) stacked together, suggesting abundance. Over time it was reanalyzed as two 'evenings' piled up — many evenings meaning many days, hence 'many, much'. The doubling itself conveys quantity.
心 — pictograph of a heart with chambers and aorta
心 is a pictograph showing a stylized heart, with strokes representing the organ's chambers and the aorta at the top. Originally meaning the physical heart, it broadened to cover mind, feelings, and intentions, since ancient Chinese thought located thinking and emotion in the heart.