胡说
hú shuō · HSK 7
to talk nonsense
🐂💩 胡 (recklessly, wildly) + 说 (speak) = to speak wildly = talk nonsense
胡 once named the northern nomads and came to mean reckless or wild; paired with 说 (speak) it means to speak without sense. English bullshit lines up: bull + drivel = 胡说.
说 — speech radical 讠(言) + 兑
说 combines the speech radical 讠(言, 'words') with 兑, which acts as the phonetic component. The character originally meant 'to explain' or 'to speak,' and broadened to mean 'say' or 'talk.' The same graph is also read 'yuè' meaning 'pleased,' a sense later written 悦.