烟火
yān huǒ · HSK 7
fireworks
🎆 烟 smoke + 火 fire = smoke-and-fire, which together means fireworks
The two characters stack their literal meanings: 烟 is smoke and 火 is fire. Smoke plus fire is exactly what a firework gives off, so 烟火 doubles as the everyday word for fireworks.
烟 — fire radical 火 + 因 (cause, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 火 ('fire') gives the meaning, while 因 supplies the sound 'yīn', close to 'yān'. Originally referring to the smoke rising from a fire, 烟 later extended to mist, vapor, and eventually tobacco and cigarettes in modern usage.
火 — pictograph of flames rising
火 is a pictograph showing flames rising upward from a fire, with the central stroke as the main blaze and the side strokes as sparks. The ancient oracle bone form looked even more clearly like a burning flame. It still means 'fire' today and serves as a common radical in characters related to heat, burning, or cooking.