浴

yù
noun #5,395

Meanings

  1. 1 bath
  2. 2 to bathe

Examples

HSK 3
Yùshì zài èr lóu.
The bathroom is on the second floor.
HSK 6
Tā xǐhuan pào rèshuǐ yù.
She likes to take a hot bath.

Tips

usage
浴 is rarely used alone in modern Chinese. It appears in compounds: 浴室 (bathroom), 沐浴 (to bathe), 浴缸 (bathtub), 浴巾 (bath towel).

Components

radical
氵 shuǐ
water (radical form)
Three drops of water on the left, the contracted form of 水. The indexing radical here. Bathing is a water activity, so the radical is literal. Same radical heads 河, 湖, 海, 洗, 漂, the family of water actions and water bodies.
phonetic
谷 gǔ
valley
Right component supplies the sound (gǔ → yù, a regular Old Chinese drift between velar and zero initials in the same rhyme). 谷 itself depicts water flowing out of a valley mouth, which adds a strong semantic echo: bathing was originally done in valley streams. So 浴 is etymologically 'water flowing through a valley = where one bathes'. Same phonetic in 欲 (desire), 俗 (common), 裕 (abundant).

Stroke Order

浴 yù