字の旅3,000 years in four forms
Oracle bone · ShangShang · c. 1200 BCE甲903 合34165
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.
部首Radical · in Nature & Elements
水 water
みず mizu
4 strokesRadical of 4 kanjiPart of 6
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. Water is the essence of life, constantly changing and flowing through the world.”
Where it sits in a kanji
Relates to liquids, the act of flowing, wetness, or the concept of purification
What it grows into
- 泉springセン · いずみ
白 + 水
Pictogram (象形) or ideogrammic compound (會意): 白 (“spring mouth”) + 水 (“water”) – water flowing from the source of a spring.
Ideogrammic compound · Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Every kanji with 水 as its radical
All 4 kanji