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沉

chén
verb HSK 4 #4,073

Meanings

  1. 1 to sink; to submerge
  2. 2 deep; heavy
  3. 3 to be immersed in

Characters

沉
chén
to sink; heavy; deep
Contains the water radical 氵, as sinking occurs in water.

Examples

石头沉到水底了。
Shítou chén dào shuǐdǐ le.
The stone sank to the bottom.
这个箱子真沉！
Zhège xiāngzi zhēn chén!
This box is really heavy!
他沉浸在音乐中。
Tā chénjìn zài yīnyuè zhōng.
He's immersed in the music.

Components

radical
氵 shuǐ
water
Water radical on the left — the indexing semantic. 沉 is to sink, submerge, or weigh down — a thing going under the water. From the literal sense came metaphorical uses: heavy mood (沉重), deep silence (沉默), a person becoming addicted (沉迷). The radical anchors all senses in the original 'going under water' image.
phonetic
冗 rǒng
redundant; excess (here phonetic)
Right component supplies the sound: rǒng → chén with full drift in modern Mandarin, though the rime traces back through Middle Chinese. 冗 itself is 冖 (cover) over 几 (table) — a person idling under a roof, hence 'redundant, superfluous'. The semantic flavour of 'extra weight' aligns nicely with sinking.

Stroke Order

沉 chén