邪魔
じゃま · jama · JLPT N4 · noun
hindrance
🚧 邪魔 = wicked + demon: a demon that blocks your path
Originally a Buddhist term for the evil demon (邪 wicked + 魔 demon) who obstructs monks in their practice. From that it came to mean any hindrance. Sound hook: jama jams things up. お邪魔します = I am intruding.
邪 — 牙 (tooth/phonetic) + 阝 (right ear, 邑 city radical)
邪 is a phonosemantic compound. The right-side 阝 (from 邑, 'settlement') originally referred to a place name, while 牙 supplied the sound. Over time the place-name use faded and the character was borrowed for the abstract sense 'crooked, evil, heterodox,' which is now its main meaning.