水字在古代的寫法是“”，很像水流流過(guò)時(shí)的形狀，這是一個(gè)象形字。

在中國(guó)古代，“水”字的另一個(gè)意思是“河流”，所以漢語(yǔ)里有些河流的名字都有“水”字，比如：漢水、溧水等等。不過(guò)到了現(xiàn)代，河流的名稱已經(jīng)很少用“水”了。一般地說(shuō)，在中國(guó)北方，大的河流稱之為“河”，比如黃河；南方稱之為“江”，比如長(zhǎng)江。

帶“水”的字中有一個(gè)很特別的字：冰。冰是水變來(lái)的，所以里面也帶著水字。它的左邊，在漢語(yǔ)里一般把它叫作“兩點(diǎn)水”，其實(shí)它本來(lái)寫作“仌”，表示凝結(jié)在一起的冰。

“水”(water) basically means a fluid composed of oxhydroxide. As a pictograph, “水” looks like the state of flowing water. In ancient times, “水” also referred to rivers. Therefore, in Chinese, the names of some rivers include “水”, as can be seen from “漢水” and “溧水”. However, in modern times, “水” is seldom contained in the names of rivers. As is well known, big rivers in the north of China are called “河”(E.g.黃河Yellow River), while those in the south are known as “江”(E.g.長(zhǎng)江Yangtse River).

Of those characters that contain “水”, one exceptionally interes- ting character is “冰”(ice). Ice is made up of water. That is why “冰” contains “水”. The left side of “冰” is “冫”(called“兩點(diǎn)水”, two drops of water), which was originally written as “仌”, which denoted coagulated ice.

鏈接：漢字里，“水”字有一個(gè)非常重要的變形“氵”，它出現(xiàn)在幾百個(gè)漢字里面。當(dāng)用“氵”組成漢字時(shí)，一般表示這個(gè)字的意義與“水”有著某種聯(lián)系。比如：溝、江、河、湖、海、洋等，表示不同的水流和水面；溧、澧、沂、淮、汶等，表示水流的名稱；波、浪、濤、涌等，表示水的變化形態(tài)；“游”和“泳”，表示在水中的動(dòng)作；“沐”和“浴”，表示用水洗頭、洗澡；特別大的水，叫作洪水，“洪”字帶“氵”；在河流里面的小島，叫作“洲”，也帶上了“氵”。

Linkage: “水” has a very important changed form: “氵”, which is contained in hundreds of Chinese characters. When “氵” is used as a component, it generally indicates that the meaning of the character which includes it is associated with water. E.g.溝 (ditch, channel), 江 (river),河 (river), 湖 (lake), 海 (sea), and洋 (ocean) all refer to different kinds of water flow and water surfaces. 溧, 澧, 沂, 淮, and汶 all denote the names of water flow, whereas, 波, 浪, 濤, and涌denote different forms of moving or rushing water.