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停水 (tíng shuǐ) — to have a water outage, to cut off the water supply

Definition

A verb-object phrase meaning the water supply is cut off (planned outage, repair, or non-payment). 停 is the verb 'to stop'; 水 is 'water' as the object.

verb
to have a water outageto cut off the water supply

Examples

  • 停水，。
    Míng tiān xiǎo qū yào tíng shuǐ, jì de tí qián cún shuǐ.
    The neighborhood will have a water outage tomorrow — remember to store water in advance.
  • 。
    Shàng ge yuè wǒ men zhè r tíng le liǎng cì shuǐ.
    Last month we had two water outages here.
  • ，停水。
    Yīn wèi guǎn dào wéi xiū, jīn tiān xià wǔ liǎng diǎn dào wǔ diǎn tíng shuǐ.
    Due to pipeline maintenance, the water will be off from 2 to 5 PM this afternoon.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
动宾dòngbīnVerb + object

An action followed by what it acts on, fused into one word.

停tíngstop
水shuǐwater

停 means stop and 水 water, together describing cutting off the water supply.

Characters in this word

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
亻Written in full as人rén
Sound part声符shēngfú
亭
亭tíng停tíng
Same sound today

The left side 亻 is a person, and the right side 亭 gives the sound tíng; this forms 停.

Open 停 →

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

水 is a simple drawing of water flowing.

Open 水 →
Appears in
Home & Housing

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