眼红
yǎn hóng · HSK 7
envious
👁️🔴 眼 eye + 红 red = eyes turn red with envy (English says green, Chinese says red)
Compound of 眼 (yǎn, eye) plus 红 (hóng, red). Where English envy is green, Mandarin makes the coveting eyes go red, so 眼红 means to covet or be jealous.
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'.
红 — silk radical 糹/纟 + work 工 (phonetic)
红 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The silk radical 糹 (simplified 纟) signals the meaning, since the character originally referred to a kind of pink or light-red dyed silk. The right side 工 supplies the sound. Over time the meaning broadened from the dye color to 'red' in general.