清楚
qīngchǔ · HSK 2
clear
💧 清 (clear/pure water) + 楚 (distinct) = clear and distinct
清 means clear or pure (water radical 氵 on the left). 楚 originally referred to a thorny shrub but here means distinct or neat. Together 清楚 means clearly understood — no fuzziness.
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.