沛 (pèi): copious

Meanings

1 copious
2 abundant
3 vigorous

Characters

沛

pèi

abundant / copious

Examples

他精力充沛，每天工作十几个小时。

Tā jīnglìchōngpèi, měitiān gōngzuò shíjǐ ge xiǎoshí.

He is full of energy and works more than ten hours a day.

今年雨水充沛，庄稼长得很好。

Jīnnián yǔshuǐ chōngpèi, zhuāngjia zhǎng de hěn hǎo.

This year's rainfall is abundant, and the crops are growing well.

Tips

usage

沛 rarely stands alone in modern Chinese; you almost always meet it inside the compound 充沛 (chōngpèi, 'abundant/full of') — 精力充沛 (energetic), 雨水充沛 (plentiful rainfall). It's also a place name: 沛县 (Pèi Xiàn) in Jiangsu was the birthplace of Han dynasty founder Liu Bang, hence his nickname 沛公 (Lord of Pei).

history

Liu Bang (刘邦), founder of the Han Dynasty, was born in Pei County and was called 沛公 before he became emperor. The 沛 character thus carries dynastic-founding associations in classical Chinese.

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water (radical form of 水)

Three-drops water radical on the left — pins the meaning to abundance of water. 沛 originally named a sudden drenching downpour and the swollen rivers that result; later generalized to any copious flow. Puts it alongside 涌 (gush), 滂 (torrential), 浩 (vast water) — same liquid-overflowing idea.

phonetic

巿 fú

kneeling apron; here phonetic (graphic residue)

Right 巿 — a four-stroke component looking like 市 (market) but actually a different glyph, originally a ceremonial knee-apron. Supplies the sound through historical drift: an old labial gave pèi. Visually almost identical to 市 shì but with a single top stroke. Don't confuse the two when copying by hand.