反乱
はんらん · hanran · JLPT N1 · noun
rebellion
反 (against) + 乱 (chaos) = rebellion: chaos turned against the rulers
The 反 here is the same one in 反对 (oppose) and 反抗 (resist). 乱 also appears in 混乱 (chaos), so 反乱 means chaos aimed at authority.
反 — hand 又 under cliff 厂
Originally a pictograph of a hand (又) turning something over against a cliff or slope (厂), depicting the action of flipping or reversing. From this came the core meaning 'to turn over,' which extended to 'opposite,' 'contrary,' and 'rebel against.' The character is purely semantic, with no phonetic component.
乱 — hand 又 + tangled silk 𠬪/乿 component
乱 is the simplified form of 亂. The traditional character depicts hands above and below untangling silk threads on a frame, with 乙 on the right. It originally meant 'to put tangled threads in order,' but came to mean both 'disorder' and 'to govern chaos.'