水
shuǐ
Definition
Water; the clear liquid that falls as rain, fills rivers and oceans, and is essential for life.
Example
我每天喝八杯水。
Show translation
I drink eight glasses of water every day.
Etymology
Oracle-bone script (甲骨文) from around 1200 BCE already showed 水 as a pictograph of flowing water — a central current flanked by two drops or ripples. It became one of the 214 Kangxi radicals and appears in hundreds of compound characters related to liquids, rivers, and moisture (e.g., 河 hé "river", 海 hǎi "sea", 汤 tāng "soup/hot water").
Cultural note
Water (水) holds deep cultural weight in Chinese thought. In Daoist philosophy, 上善若水 (shàng shàn ruò shuǐ) — "the highest good is like water" — opens a famous passage in the Daodejing, praising water's humble yet irresistible power. Water is also one of the Five Elements (五行 wǔxíng) in traditional Chinese cosmology, associated with winter, the north, and the color black. In everyday speech, 水 appears widely in compounds: 水果 (shuǐguǒ, "fruit"), 矿泉水 (kuàngquánshuǐ, "mineral water"), and 洪水 (hóngshuǐ, "flood").