荡 (dàng): to swing

Meanings

1 to swing
2 to sway
3 to wash away
4 to sweep

Characters

荡

dàng

to swing; to wash; to sweep

Examples

孩子们在公园里荡秋千。

Háizi men zài gōngyuán lǐ dàngqiūqiān.

The children are swinging on swings in the park.

小船在湖面上荡来荡去。

Xiǎochuán zài húmiàn shàng dàng lái dàng qù.

The small boat swayed back and forth on the lake.

Tips

usage

Common in compounds: 荡秋千 (to swing), 动荡 (turbulent), 扫荡 (to sweep/mop up), 荡漾 (to ripple). The character conveys a sense of sweeping motion.

Components

radical

艹 cǎo

grass; plant (top radical)

Top grass radical. Original 荡 named a marshy lake where reeds and water-plants swayed in the wind — the grass radical captured the vegetation, while 汤 below carried the water and the sound. From that swaying-marsh image came the modern senses: to sway, to wash away, to sweep clean.

phonetic

汤 tāng

soup; hot water (here phonetic + semantic)

Bottom 汤 — water 氵 plus 昜 sunlight, originally 'hot water.' Supplies the sound tāng → dàng with a tone-and-aspiration shift, and carries semantic flavour: rippling, sloshing water in motion. Combined with the grass above, you get a swaying reed-marsh — the etymological core of 荡 (sway, ripple, wash).