降水
こうすい · kousui · JLPT N1 · noun
rain
💧 降 = fall + 水 = water: water falling down from the sky
降 means fall or descend, and 水 means water. Together they describe water coming down as rain or snow. The same 降 appears in 降りる, to get down.
降 — 阜 (mound) 阝+ 夅 (descend, phonetic)
Originally depicted two feet (夅) walking down from a mound or hill (阜), showing the act of descending. The 阝on the left is the 'mound' radical, while 夅 carries both phonetic and semantic weight, suggesting downward movement. Pronounced jiàng for 'descend' and xiáng for 'surrender'.
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.