赞不绝口
zàn bù jué koǔ · HSK 7
to praise without cease
👏 赞 praise + 不绝 not-ceasing + 口 mouth = a mouth that never stops praising
Literally the praise (赞) never breaks off (不绝) from the mouth (口). Said of someone who keeps complimenting on and on, praising to high heaven.
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'.
绝 — silk 纟 + 巴 (phonetic-ish, knife cutting threads)
绝 originally depicted cutting silk threads with a knife, conveying the idea of severing or cutting off completely. From this concrete sense it extended to mean 'to break off,' 'exhausted,' and figuratively 'absolute' or 'extreme.' The simplified form replaced the older right-hand component with 巴.
口 — pictograph of an open mouth
口 is one of the oldest pictographs in Chinese, originally drawn as a simple outline of an open mouth. Its core meaning 'mouth' extended naturally to 'opening' or 'entrance', as in 入口 (entrance). It also serves as a common radical in characters related to speech, eating, or apertures.