清明
qīng míng · HSK 7
Qingming or Pure Brightness
🧹 清明 = 清 clear + 明 bright; the spring term that doubles as Tomb-Sweeping Day
Both halves carry the same idea: 清 (qīng) means clear/pure and 明 (míng) means bright, so 清明 literally reads pure-brightness. It names the early-April solar term and the festival when families sweep ancestral graves.
清 — water 氵 + 青 (azure/blue-green, phonetic)
清 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The water radical 氵 gives the meaning—originally clear, unmuddied water—while 青 (qīng, azure) supplies the sound and reinforces the image of pure blue-green water. The sense later broadened from 'clear water' to 'clear, pure, clean' in general.