不景気
ふけいき · fukeiki · JLPT N1 · noun
recession
📉 不 = not + 景気 = business climate: not-good business climate, i.e. a downturn
景気 means the state of business and the economy; 不 negates it, so 不景気 is a downturn. The same 景気 appears in 好景気, a boom.
不 — single pictograph; bird flying upward
Originally a pictograph in oracle bone script, traditionally interpreted as a bird flying up toward the sky and unable to come down, suggesting negation or refusal. Over time it became the standard negation word in Chinese, used before verbs and adjectives to mean 'not'.
景 — sun 日 on top + capital 京 below (phonetic)
景 is a semantic-phonetic compound: 日 (sun) gives the meaning and 京 (jīng, capital) supplies the sound. It originally meant 'sunlight' or 'bright', then extended to 'shadow cast by sunlight', and later broadened to 'scenery' or 'view'.