汗水
hàn shuǐ · HSK 7
sweat
💦 汗 = sweat + 水 = water; sweat-water is the perspiration running off you
Decomposes cleanly: 汗 (hàn, sweat) plus 水 (shuǐ, water). The 氵water radical on the left of 汗 already flags it as a liquid the body gives off, and adding 水 doubles down on the wet, dripping sense.
汗 — water radical 氵 + 干 (gān, phonetic)
汗 is a phono-semantic compound. The water radical 氵 signals liquid, and 干 supplies the sound. Together they denote sweat — the water that comes out of the body. Read hàn it means sweat; read hán it appears in 可汗, a loanword for a Mongol or Turkic ruler (khan).
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.