溺 (nì): to drown

Meanings

1 to drown
2 to indulge (in)
3 to be addicted to
4 to spoil (a child)

Characters

溺

nì

to drown; to indulge; to be submerged

Examples

他差点儿溺死在河里。

Tā chàdiǎnr nìsǐ zài hélǐ.

He nearly drowned in the river.

父母过分溺爱孩子，对孩子的成长不利。

Fùmǔ guòfèn nì'ài háizi, duì háizi de chéngzhǎng bùlì.

Parents who excessively spoil their children are not helping their development.

Tips

usage

溺 has two key uses: literal drowning (溺死 = to drown) and figurative indulgence (溺爱 = to spoil/dote on excessively; 沉溺 = to be immersed/lost in something). The water radical 氵 connects both meanings — being submerged.

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water (radical form of 水)

Three-drops water radical on the left, side form of 水. Indexes 溺 in the immersion family alongside 沉 (sink), 浸 (soak), 淹 (flood). The radical does the heavy semantic work here: every literal sense of 溺 — drowning, being submerged, indulging excessively — starts with being engulfed by water.

phonetic

弱 ruò

weak; feeble

Right 弱 supplies the sound ruò → nì through historical drift. It also lends a clean semantic flavour: someone weak in the water cannot stay afloat. The fused image — water plus weakness — gives 溺 both 'drown' literally and 'be helplessly indulgent' figuratively (溺爱).