潜水
qiánshuǐ · HSK 7
go under water
🤿💧 潜 submerge/hide + 水 water = go under the water
潜 (qián) means to submerge or stay hidden below the surface; 水 (shuǐ) is water. Together they literally read submerge-water, which is diving. The 氵 on the left of 潜 is the three-drop water radical, a built-in hint that this word is about being underwater.
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.