美人
měi rén · HSK 7
beauty
💃 美人 = 美 beautiful + 人 person = a beauty, a stunner
美 (měi) means beautiful and 人 (rén) means person, so 美人 is literally a beautiful person. Same 人 as in 中国人 (Chinese person).
美 — sheep 羊 on top + big 大 below
美 is traditionally explained as a pictograph of a person (大) wearing a large sheep or ram's-head ornament, suggesting beauty through adornment. An alternative reading takes 羊 (sheep) over 大 (big) to mean 'a big, fat sheep'—seen as delicious and pleasing, hence 'beautiful, good'.
人 — pictograph of a standing person
人 is a pictograph showing a person viewed from the side, with two strokes representing the legs and torso of a standing human. In oracle bone script it clearly depicted a figure leaning slightly forward. The meaning has remained 'person' or 'human' throughout its history.