由此看来
yóucǐkànlái · HSK 7
It seems that it seems
👀 由此看来 = from + this + look + come: from this, looking at it, thus it seems
Four parts stack into a verbal chain: 由 from, 此 this, 看 look, 来 come. Read left to right it says from-this-look-come, the set phrase a speaker uses to mean judging from this, so it appears. The 看 look part carries the seeming.
由 — pictograph of a gourd or vessel with a stem
由 originated as a pictograph showing a gourd, fruit, or vessel with a sprout or stem emerging from the top. Over time the meaning shifted abstractly to 'come forth from' or 'origin', giving modern senses like 'reason', 'cause', and 'from'. It is unrelated to 田 despite the visual similarity.
此 — foot 止 + spoon/person 匕
此 originally depicted a person (匕) standing with a foot (止), suggesting 'to stop here' or 'this place.' Over time the meaning generalized from a specific location to the demonstrative pronoun 'this.' The foot component still hints at the original sense of standing in a particular spot.
看 — hand 手 over eye 目
看 is an associative compound showing a hand (手, simplified to 龹) shading an eye (目), depicting someone shielding their eyes to look into the distance. From this concrete gesture it broadened to mean 'to look,' 'to watch,' and later 'to read' or 'to consider.'
来 — pictograph of a wheat plant with grain heads
来 originally depicted a stalk of wheat with drooping grain heads, and meant 'wheat' in oracle bone script. It was later borrowed phonetically to write the unrelated verb 'to come,' which became its dominant meaning. The original 'wheat' sense was taken over by 麥 (now 麦).