Kanji Kaisen

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.

The oracle bone, bronze and seal stages show 水, not 氵 itself.

部首Radical · in Nature & Elements

氵

氵 water (3 drops)

さんずい sanzui

3 strokesRadical of 123 kanjiPart of 126

Your ink in 氵0% painted · 0 of 123 familiar

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), the entry for the full form, CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Imagine three raindrops falling—that's sanzui! Whenever you see these three dots on the left side of a kanji, think of water, liquids, or anything that flows.”

Where it sits in a kanji

Adds the sense of water, liquid, wetness, or flowing to the kanji's meaning

Start with決Study all 123Print sheet
育つ

What it grows into

Built from 氵, with sourced origins
一覧

Every kanji with 氵 as its radical

Most used first
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered

All 123 kanji

Start with決All 123