衆議院
しゅうぎいん · shuugiin · JLPT N1 · noun
house
🏛️ 衆 = crowd (three 人 people), 議 = debate, 院 = house: a house where a crowd debates
衆 stacks three 人 (people) to mean the masses. 議 combines 言 (speech) and 義 (meaning) for debate. 院 is an official institution, so 衆議院 is the big assembly where many people debate laws.
院 — left ear 阝(阜) + complete 完
院 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left 阝 (from 阜, mound/hill) suggests walls or enclosed terrain, hinting at an enclosed space. The right 完 (wán) provides the sound and originally meant 'complete', so 院 came to mean a walled courtyard or institution like a hospital or academy.