馬鹿
ばか · baka · JLPT N3 · noun
fool
🐴🦌 馬鹿 = horse + deer: someone who can't tell a horse from a deer
The kanji are mostly chosen for their sound. A popular story links them to the Chinese idiom 指鹿為馬, about a minister who called a deer a horse to test which courtiers would agree with him. Only a fool mixes the two up.
鹿 — pictograph of a deer with antlers, head, and legs
鹿 is a pictograph showing a deer in profile, with antlers on top, a body, and four legs. Oracle bone forms clearly depict the antlered head and slender body. It has meant 'deer' from earliest records and serves as a radical in many words for deer-like animals, such as 麒麟 (qilin).