禁不住
jīn bu zhù · HSK 7
can't help it
🤧 禁 restrain + 不住 unable to hold = restraint that won't hold = can't help it
The 不住 ending means an action cannot be sustained or held: 禁不住 is literally restraint that fails to hold. Like a sneeze you can't suppress, it marks something you can't keep in or bear.
不 — single pictograph; bird flying upward
Originally a pictograph in oracle bone script, traditionally interpreted as a bird flying up toward the sky and unable to come down, suggesting negation or refusal. Over time it became the standard negation word in Chinese, used before verbs and adjectives to mean 'not'.
住 — person radical 亻 + 主 (master/zhǔ, phonetic)
住 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 亻 (person) gives the meaning—something a person does—while 主 supplies the sound, originally 'zhǔ' (master, a lamp standing in place). Together they suggest a person staying put, yielding the senses 'to live, dwell, reside, stop'.