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萍

píng
noun #58,839

Meanings

  1. 1 duckweed
  2. 2 floating water plant

Examples

陌生人偶然相遇，正如萍水相逢。
Mòshēngrén ǒurán xiāngyù, zhèngrú píngshuǐxiāngféng.
Strangers who meet by chance are like duckweed drifting together on water.
他一生漂泊，如水上浮萍。
Tā yìshēng piāobó, rú shuǐ shàng fú píng.
His life drifted about with no fixed place, like duckweed on the water.

Tips

culture
萍 is duckweed, which floats with no roots in the ground. The idiom 萍水相逢 ('duckweed meeting on the water') describes strangers who cross paths briefly by pure chance.

Components

radical
艹 cǎo
grass; plant
The grass radical on top, marking 萍 as a plant. It is the indexing radical and pins the word to vegetation: here a small floating water plant.
semantic
氵 shuǐ
water
The water form, since duckweed lives on the water's surface. It adds the 'aquatic' half of the meaning beneath the grass radical.
phonetic
平 píng
flat; level
Supplies the sound directly: 平 píng gives 萍 its reading píng. Its 'flat' sense also fits, since duckweed lies flat on the water.

Stroke Order

萍 píng