看 sets a hand 手 directly above an eye 目, exactly the gesture of shading your eyes to peer into the distance. China's oldest dictionary, the Shuowen Jiezi, explains it in four blunt words: "from hand, below eye" — an eye held in the shadow of a raised palm. That single gesture grew into the everyday verb for looking, watching, and even reading.
A piece of culture
Seeing all of Chang'an in one day The Tang poet Meng Jiao failed the imperial exams twice before finally passing in 796, in his mid-forties. His poem "After Passing the Exam" captures pure, giddy relief: 春风得意马蹄疾，一日看尽长安花 — "In the spring breeze, exultant, my horse's hooves fly swift; in a single day I have seen all the flowers of Chang'an." That line gave Chinese the idiom 走马看花, "looking at flowers from a galloping horse" — glancing so quickly you barely take anything in, the exact opposite of the careful looking 看 was built to describe. You already know 马 (horse) from chapter seven.
Use it in a real word
看见
kànjiàn · hon3 gin3
to see; to catch sight of — literally "look-see"; you already know 见