赔 has two directions: paying someone for damage (赔钱 péi qián, to compensate) and losing money in business (赔本 péiběn, to lose capital). Common compounds: 赔偿 (péicháng, to compensate formally), 赔礼道歉 (péilǐ dàoqiàn, to apologize and make amends).
Left indexing shell radical 贝 (Kangxi #154 in simplified form) — historically cowrie shells, the earliest form of currency. Anchors 赔 in the money / value family alongside 财 (wealth), 货 (goods), 贵 (expensive), 购 (purchase). Compensation involves paying out money, so the shell radical is semantically at the heart of the meaning.
Right component supplies the sound: 咅 pǒu → péi with vowel shift. Same phonetic family appears in 陪 péi (accompany), 培 péi (cultivate), 倍 bèi (multiply by) — a tight péi/bèi sound cluster. Originally 咅 depicted spitting out / splitting apart, so it adds a faint 'paying out' nuance to the compensation meaning.
