熬夜
áo yè · HSK 7
to stay up late or all night
🌙🥱 áo sounds like OW + yè means night — OW, what a long night!
熬 means to endure or simmer through something slowly, and 夜 means night. Together: enduring the whole night without sleep, like a slow simmer that never stops.
熬 — 敖 (phonetic) + 灬 (fire)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The bottom 灬 is a form of 火 (fire), giving the meaning of cooking by simmering or boiling down over heat. The top 敖 supplies the sound. From 'simmer slowly' came the extended sense of 'endure' or 'hold out through hardship.'
夜 — 亠 lid + 亻 person + 夕 evening moon
夜 originally depicted a person (亻) under a roof (亠) with the moon (夕) beside them, evoking nighttime rest. The moon component 夕 carries the meaning of evening, while the surrounding elements set the scene of a person at night. Over time it came to mean 'night' in general.