误导
wù dǎo · HSK 7
to mislead
🧭 误 (error) + 导 (lead/guide) = lead someone the wrong way = mislead
误 carries the sense of mistake or wrong; 导 means to lead or guide (same 导 as in 导师 mentor). Put them together and you get guiding someone down a wrong path: to mislead or misguide.
误 — speech radical 讠 + 吴 wú (phonetic)
误 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 讠 (speech) hints at meaning—originally tied to mistaken or misleading words—while 吴 supplies the sound. Over time it broadened from verbal errors to any mistake, delay, or harm caused by error.