水稻
shuǐ dào · HSK 7
paddy
🌾 水稻 = water (水) + rice-plant (稻): the rice that grows in flooded paddies
水 is water and 稻 is the standing rice plant, so 水稻 is literally water-rice — the wet-paddy crop, as opposed to dry-land grain. The 禾 element on the left of 稻 is the grain-stalk radical that marks cereal crops.
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.