河畔

hé pàn · HSK 7

riverside

🏞️🌊 河 river + 畔 bank/side = the bank beside a river, the riverside

河 means river; 畔 means the edge or bank of a body of water (note the 田 field radical, land along the water). Together: the land along a river, the riverside. 畔 pàn rhymes with the pan of a riverbank trail.

河 — water radical 氵 + 可 (kě, phonetic)
河 is a classic semantic-phonetic compound: 氵 (water) gives the meaning 'river', while 可 supplies the sound. Originally 河 referred specifically to the Yellow River, and only later broadened to mean rivers in general.

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