噴水

ふんすい · funsui · JLPT N2 · noun

drinking fountain

⛲ 噴 = spurt + 水 = water: a fountain is water that spurts out

噴 means spout or gush, and 水 means water. ふんすい (funsui) is water that gushes upward, so the two parts give the whole meaning.

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.

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