胶水
jiāo shuǐ · HSK 5
glue
🧴 胶水 = glue + water; literally 'sticky liquid'
胶 means glue or sticky substance; 水 means water. Together they describe liquid glue, the runny kind in a bottle, as opposed to a solid glue stick.
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.