汹涌
xiōng yǒng · HSK 7
turbulent
🌊 Both halves carry the water radical 氵; 涌 = water 氵 + 甬, to gush up — surging waves
汹涌 stacks two water-radical characters, so the word is doubly soaked: 汹 (rushing) plus 涌 (welling up). Together they describe water that surges and churns violently.
涌 — water radical 氵 + 甬 (yǒng, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 氵 (water) gives the meaning, while 甬 supplies the sound. It originally described water gushing or welling up from a spring, and by extension came to mean any surging or swelling motion, as in waves or crowds.