泪水
lèi shuǐ · HSK 4
tears
💧😢 泪水 = 泪 (tear) + 水 (water) — literally tear-water
泪 already means tear (氵 water radical + 目 eye in its older form 淚). Adding 水 (water) makes it explicit: the liquid that comes from crying. Common compound for tears as a substance.
泪 — water radical 氵 + eye 目
泪 is a semantic compound combining the water radical 氵 with 目 (eye), literally depicting water from the eye — tears. It is the modern simplified form of the older character 淚, which used 戾 as a phonetic component. The newer 泪 form is purely meaning-based and easier to remember.
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.