荷 (hé): lotus

Meanings

1 lotus
2 lotus leaf

Characters

荷

hé

lotus

Examples

池塘里开满了荷花。

Chítáng lǐ kāimǎn le héhuā.

The pond is full of blooming lotus flowers.

荷叶上有一只青蛙。

Héyè shàng yǒu yì zhī qīngwā.

There is a frog on the lotus leaf.

Tips

culture

The lotus symbolizes purity in Chinese culture and recurs in classical poetry and painting. The line 出淤泥而不染 ('rising from the mud yet unstained') praises the lotus as a model of integrity.

usage

Read hé for the plant (荷花, lotus) and as the short form for the Netherlands (荷兰). The separate reading hè means 'to carry; load', as in 负荷 and 电荷 (electric charge).

Components

radical

艹 cǎo

grass (radical form)

Top grass radical, the indexing radical, declaring the character a plant. The lotus is an aquatic herb, properly grouped under 艹. The same radical anchors 花 (flower), 草 (grass), 莲 (also lotus), and 菊 (chrysanthemum).

phonetic

何 hé

what; which (here phonetic)

Below the grass, 何 supplies the sound (hé, an exact match). 何 originally pictured a person carrying a load on the shoulder, which is also the source of the secondary reading hè 'to carry'. The phonetic doubles as a faint semantic for that 'bear / carry' sense. Same family: 河, 苛, 柯.