沸腾
fèi téng · HSK 7
to boil
🫧🔥 沸 (boil) + 腾 (surge up) = water surging up in a rolling boil
沸 contains 水 (water) and 弗 (fèi sound). 腾 means to leap or surge. Together they describe liquid bubbling violently upward — and by extension, emotions or crowds erupting with intensity.
腾 — horse 馬 + phonetic 朕
腾 (traditional 騰) is a semantic-phonetic compound: the horse radical 馬 gives the meaning, while 朕 supplies the sound. It originally depicted a horse galloping or leaping upward, and the meaning broadened to 'soar,' 'gallop,' 'rise,' or 'surge,' as in 腾飞 (soar) and 沸腾 (boil over).