看護婦
かんごふ · kangofu · JLPT N4 · noun
nurse
🩺 看護婦 = watch over + protect + woman
看 (kan) means to watch over, 護 (go) means to protect, and 婦 (fu) means woman: a woman who watches over and protects. It is an older, gendered term; the modern neutral word swaps the last character: 看護師 (kangoshi).
看 — hand 手 over eye 目
看 is an associative compound showing a hand (手, simplified to 龹) shading an eye (目), depicting someone shielding their eyes to look into the distance. From this concrete gesture it broadened to mean 'to look,' 'to watch,' and later 'to read' or 'to consider.'