傲

Left person radical (side-form of 人) - the indexing radical. Pictograph of a person walking, viewed in profile. Marks 傲 as a human-character/disposition word, putting it with 仁 benevolent, 信 trustworthy, 倔 stubborn. Arrogance is a stance held by a person.

Right 敖 supplies the sound: áo → ào with tone shift. 敖 originally depicted someone wandering freely, unrestrained - a faint semantic resonance with arrogance: refusing to bow to constraint. Same phonetic family: 熬 endure, 翱 soar, 遨 roam. The pairing reads as 'a person who wanders unfettered' = haughty, unyielding.