水
shuǐ · HSK 1
water
💧 Pictograph of flowing water — central stream with droplets on each side.
The oracle-bone form showed a vertical river line flanked by splashing drops. Modern 水 keeps that skeleton: one wavy spine, two flick strokes per side. It's also the radical in many water-related characters like 河, 海, 洗.
水 — pictograph of flowing water
水 is a pictograph depicting a stream of flowing water, with the central line representing the main current and the side strokes showing splashing droplets or ripples. In oracle bone script it was drawn even more clearly as a wavy vertical line with branches. It retains its original meaning of 'water' and also serves as a radical, often appearing in the compressed form 氵.