扰乱
rǎo luàn · HSK 7
to disturb
🌪️ 扰乱 = 扰 (disturb/harass) + 乱 (chaos/disorder)
扰 means to bother or harass; 乱 means disorder or chaos. Put together they mean to throw a calm situation into turmoil — to disrupt the order of things. 乱 also shows up in 乱七八糟 (a total mess).
乱 — hand 又 + tangled silk 𠬪/乿 component
乱 is the simplified form of 亂. The traditional character depicts hands above and below untangling silk threads on a frame, with 乙 on the right. It originally meant 'to put tangled threads in order,' but came to mean both 'disorder' and 'to govern chaos.'