眼下
yǎn xià · HSK 7
now
👁️ 眼下 = eye + below; what is right under your eye = the present moment, now
眼 (eye) + 下 (below/under). What sits directly below your gaze is the here-and-now, hence now at present. The literal below-the-eye sense survives in medicine as subocular.
眼 — eye radical 目 + 艮 (phonetic)
眼 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 目 means 'eye' and gives the meaning, while 艮 on the right supplies the sound. Originally referring to the eyeball, it broadened over time to mean 'eye' generally and, by extension, 'a hole' or 'key point'.
下 — horizontal line 一 + mark below
下 is an indicative character: a long horizontal line represents a reference level, and a shorter stroke placed beneath it points to the area below. The original meaning 'below, down' comes directly from this spatial diagram, and it later extended to verbs like 'descend' and 'lower'.