漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements
水: water
Oracle bone · Shang Bronze · Western Zhou Small seal · Qin Today
Oracle bone: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Bronze: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Two readings, and the words that use each
スイsui · on'yomi · in compounds
- 水曜日すいようびWednesday
- 水道すいどうwater supply
- 水準すいじゅんlevel, standard
- 水中すいちゅうunderwater
- 海水かいすいocean water
みずmizu · kun'yomi · on its own
- 水みずwater
- 水着みずぎbathing suit
- 水色みずいろlight blue
Also read みず-, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Pictogram (象形)
Pictogram (象形) of water flowing; sometimes written as the variant 氺 (e.g., 泰, 录, and 黎). Next to a character, it is compressed and stylized into 氵 (which is unrelated to 冫).
Source: Wiktionary, 水 (rev. 94507192), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“See the river flowing before you! The strong central line is the deep, powerful current, while the smaller strokes on the sides are the splashes of water hitting rocks in the stream.”
Connections
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · shuǐ
Same form: 水 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 水 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 水 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin shuǐ most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.