愁眉苦脸
choú méi kǔ liǎn · HSK 7
to look anxious
😟 worry-brows + bitter-face: each character spells out the expression
愁眉 = worried eyebrows, 苦脸 = bitter face. The idiom literally assembles a miserable expression piece by piece — furrowed brows plus a sour, pained look. Say it and you're describing the face part by part.
愁 — autumn 秋 (top) + heart 心 (bottom)
A semantic compound combining 秋 (autumn) above 心 (heart). Autumn, with its withering leaves and fading light, traditionally evoked melancholy in Chinese poetry, so 'autumn over the heart' came to mean sorrow, worry, or anxiety. 秋 also hints at the sound.
苦 — grass radical 艹 + 古 (old)
Originally referred to a bitter-tasting plant, with the grass radical 艹 indicating its botanical nature and 古 providing the phonetic element. The meaning extended from the literal bitter taste to figurative senses of hardship, suffering, and painful effort.
脸 — flesh radical 月 (肉) + 僉 qiān (phonetic)
脸 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 月 is the 'flesh/body' radical (from 肉), signaling a body part. The right side 僉 supplies the sound. Originally 臉 meant the cheeks or area below the eyes; over time it broadened to mean the whole face. 脸 is the simplified form.