说谎
shuōhuǎng · HSK 7
tell a lie
🤥 说 (speak) + 谎 (a lie) = to speak a lie, to lie
说 means to speak or say; 谎 means a falsehood. Put the act of speaking together with a falsehood and you get 说谎, to tell a lie. The 言 (speech) radical on the left of 谎 reinforces that it is about words.
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.