迷信
めいしん · meishin · JLPT N2 · noun
superstition
🔮 迷 = lost/confused + 信 = belief: a belief that leads you astray, like believing in lucky charms
迷 means confused or lost, and 信 means belief or trust. Together they mean trusting beliefs that have no real basis, such as lucky numbers or fortune-telling.
迷 — 辶 (walk) + 米 (rice/mǐ, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The 辶 component (walking/road) gives the meaning of going astray on a path, while 米 (mǐ) supplies the sound. Originally referring to losing one's way while traveling, it later extended to mean confused, lost, or fascinated/captivated by something.
信 — person 亻 + speech 言
信 combines 亻(person) with 言(speech), depicting a person standing by their words. The original sense is 'truthfulness' or 'sincerity'—what a person says can be trusted. From this it extended to 'believe,' 'trust,' and later 'message' or 'letter,' since a letter carries one's word.