喷泉
pēn quán · HSK 7
fountain
⛲ 喷 spurt/spray + 泉 spring = a spring that sprays upward = fountain
喷 (pēn) means to gush or spray out, and 泉 (quán) is a natural water spring. Put them together and you get water spraying up from a spring: a fountain. The 泉 character itself stacks 白 (white) over 水 (water), the old sense of clear spring water.
喷 — mouth radical 口 + 贲 (bēn, phonetic)
喷 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The mouth radical 口 signals the meaning—an action involving the mouth—while 贲 (bēn) supplies the sound, shifted to pēn. It originally described forcefully spurting or spraying something out of the mouth, and now extends to any spurting, gushing, or spraying.
泉 — white 白 above water 水
泉 is a pictograph showing a spring: water (水) flowing out from an opening in a rock, with 白 on top representing the mouth of the spring. The original oracle bone form depicted water streaming from a hollow. Its core meaning, 'spring' or 'fountain,' has remained stable since ancient times.