马虎
mǎ hu · HSK 7
careless
🐴🐯 马 horse + 虎 tiger — a sloppy painter drew a beast that was neither, so it means careless
From a folk tale: an artist carelessly painted a creature half-horse, half-tiger and called it close enough. The horse+tiger pairing became 马虎, the word for doing things in a slapdash, negligent way.
马 — pictograph of a horse (simplified from 馬)
马 is a pictograph that originally depicted a horse in profile, with mane, legs, and tail clearly visible in the oracle bone and bronze script forms. The traditional form 馬 still preserves four dots representing the legs. The modern simplified form 马 streamlines these strokes but retains the same meaning: horse.
虎 — 虍 (tiger stripes) + 几 (legs)
虎 is a pictograph of a tiger, originally drawn with a striped body, gaping mouth, and crouching legs. Over time the top simplified into the 虍 radical (tiger markings) while the bottom became 几, representing the hind legs. It still means 'tiger' and appears in many compounds about ferocity or courage.