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萍

píng
noun #58,839

Meanings

  1. 1 duckweed
  2. 2 floating water plant

Examples

HSK 7-9
陌生人偶然相遇，正如萍水相逢。
Mòshēngrén ǒurán xiāngyù, zhèngrú píngshuǐ-xiāngféng.
Strangers who meet by chance are like duckweed drifting together on water.
HSK 7-9
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 gives 萍 its reading píng. Its 'flat' sense also fits, since duckweed lies flat on the water.

Stroke Order

萍 píng