好多
hǎoduō · HSK 2
much
📚 好 (good) + 多 (many) = a good many = lots
好 here is an intensifier (so/very), and 多 means many/much. Together 好多 literally reads as so-many, used colloquially for a large quantity of things or people.
好 — woman 女 + child 子
好 is an associative compound showing a woman 女 beside a child 子, depicting a mother with her baby. From this image of maternal affection it came to mean 'good, fine, pleasing.' The reading hǎo means 'good'; read hào it means 'to like.'
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.