懒得
lǎn dé · HSK 7
not to feel like
🛋️ 懒 = lazy, so 懒得 = too lazy to bother doing it
懒 (lǎn) is the everyday word for lazy. Tack on 得 and you get 懒得 — the can't-be-bothered feeling that stops you starting a task.
懒 — heart radical 忄 + 賴/赖 (rely)
A semantic-phonetic compound: the heart radical 忄 signals an emotion or mental state, while 賴 (lài, 'to rely on') supplies the sound. The original idea was a mind that leans on others and avoids effort, which extended to the modern meaning 'lazy'.
得 — 彳 (step) + 旦 (sun/day) + 寸 (hand)
Originally depicted a hand 寸 reaching for a cowrie shell 貝 (later simplified to 旦), with 彳 'step' added to show going out and obtaining something. The core meaning is 'to get' or 'obtain'. The reading děi extends this to 'must/have to' — what one is obliged to get done.