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冷水 (lěng shuǐ) — cold water (literal); unboiled water; (figurative) cold water, discouragement

Definition

Literally 'cold water'. Used literally for unboiled/cool water, and figuratively in the idiom 泼冷水 ('pour cold water on') to mean discouraging someone. No direct sibling overlap.

noun
cold water (literal)unboiled water(figurative) cold waterdiscouragement

Examples

  • 冷水。
    Xià tiān hē yì bēi lěng shuǐ zhēn shū fu.
    A glass of cold water in summer is really refreshing.
  • 冷水，，。
    Shēng shuǐ shì lěng shuǐ, méi yǒu zhǔ guò, bù néng zhí jiē hē.
    Unboiled water is cold water that hasn't been boiled and can't be drunk directly.
  • ，冷水。
    Tā rè qíng dì tí le yí gè jiàn yì, què bèi dà jiā pō le yì pén lěng shuǐ.
    He enthusiastically made a suggestion, but everyone poured cold water on it.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

冷lěngcold
水shuǐwater

冷 means cold and 水 means water; together they name cold or unboiled water.

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
冫Written in full as仌bīngice
Sound part声符shēngfú
令
令lìng冷lěng
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

冷 uses 冫, the ice form, with 令 as a sound part, to mean cold as ice.

Open 冷 →

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
Beverages

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