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沉

chén
verb HSK 5 #4,073

Meanings

  1. 1 to sink; to submerge
  2. 2 deep; heavy
  3. 3 to be immersed in

Characters

沉
chén
to sink; heavy; deep
Contains the water radical 氵, as sinking occurs in water.

Examples

HSK 3
这个箱子真沉！
Zhège xiāngzi zhēn chén!
This box is really heavy!
HSK 5
石头沉到水底了。
Shítou chén dào shuǐdǐ le.
The stone sank to the bottom.
HSK 6
他沉浸在音乐中。
Tā chénjìn zài yīnyuè zhōng.
He's immersed in the music.

Components

radical
氵 shuǐ
water
Water radical on the left - the indexing semantic. 沉 is to sink, submerge, or weigh down - a thing going under the water. From the literal sense came metaphorical uses: heavy mood (沉重), deep silence (沉默), a person becoming addicted (沉迷). The radical anchors all senses in the original 'going under water' image.
phonetic
冗 rǒng
redundant; excess
Right component supplies the sound: rǒng → chén with full drift in modern Mandarin, though the rime traces back through Middle Chinese. 冗 itself is 冖 (cover) over 几 (table) - a person idling under a roof, hence 'redundant, superfluous'. The semantic flavour of 'extra weight' aligns nicely with sinking.

Stroke Order

沉 chén