(): to drown

() is a Chinese character meaning “to drown.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #3067 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, water. Its radical form (water) appears in many related characters such as (, river), (hǎi, sea), (yáng, ocean).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to drown

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticwater

Decomposition: ⿰氵弱 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Practice writing with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
nì shuǐto drown
nì sǐto drown
chén nìvariant of 沉溺[chen2 ni4]
nì àito spoil
zì nìto drown oneself
便biàn niàoto urinate or defecate
nì zhíto neglect one's duty
yù nì(HK) to get into difficulties (in the sea or a swimming pool etc)
nì wángto drown
nì yīngto drown a newborn baby (as method of infanticide)
chǒng nìto spoil
dān nìto indulge in
12
Total compounds
50
As first character
50
As last character
0
As middle character

appears in 12 compound words: 50 as the first character, 50 as the last, and 0 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

0.82110 co-occurrences
0.81711 co-occurrences
tán
0.81315 co-occurrences
0.5881,333 co-occurrences
0.53211 co-occurrences
suì
0.51113 co-occurrences
chén
0.5053,444 co-occurrences
dān
0.496294 co-occurrences
zhěng
0.480930 co-occurrences
0.4777,770 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

暴雨过后,水上涨,淹没了低洼的街道。

bào yǔ guò hòu , nì shuǐ shàng zhǎng , yān méi le dī wā de jiē dào .

After the heavy rain, the water level rose, flooding the low-lying streets.

Hk01.comFeb 2026

...魂断异乡 49岁中国游客马来西亚下海游水

. . . hún duàn yì xiāng 4 9 suì zhōng guó yóu kè mǎ lái xī yà xià hǎi yóu shuǐ nì bì

... A 49-year-old Chinese tourist drowned in Malaysia

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

花莲鲤鱼潭9岁男童毙 纵管处:与地方政府共同强化管理

huā lián lǐ yú tán 9 suì nán tóng nì bì zòng guǎn chǔ : yǔ dì fāng zhèng fǔ gòng tóng qiáng huà guǎn lǐ

Hualien Liyutan 9-year-old boy drowned Longitudinal Management Office: Strengthen management with local governments

TvbsFeb 2026

鱼潭翻船9岁童毙!傅崐萁:花莲无管辖权 轰中央卸责忙切...

yú tán fān chuán 9 suì tóng nì bì ! fù 崐 萁 : huā lián wú guǎn xiá quán hōng zhōng yāng xiè zé máng qiē . . .

A 9-year-old child drowned in a boat capsized in Yutan! Fu Kunqi: Hualien has no jurisdiction and is busy with the central government...

Nownews今日新聞Feb 2026

鲤鱼潭天鹅船翻覆9岁童毙!傅崐萁:花东出意外 中央只想切割

lǐ yú tán tiān é chuán fān fù 9 suì tóng nì bì ! fù 崐 萁 : huā dōng chū yì wài zhōng yāng zhī xiǎng qiē gē

The swan boat capsized in Liyu Lake and drowned a 9-year-old child! Fu Kunqi: Huadong had an accident and the center just wanted to cut

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

“9岁童毙鲤鱼潭遭中央切割” 傅崐萁:民进党政府...

9 suì tóng nì bì lǐ yú tán zāo zhōng yāng qiē gē fù 崐 萁 : mín jìn dǎng zhèng fǔ . . .

"A 9-year-old child drowned in Liyu Lake and was cut by the central government" Fu Kunqi: DPP government...

Character Family

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 溺 (nì) mean in Chinese?
溺 (nì) primarily means "to drown." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3067 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 溺 have?
溺 is written with 13 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 溺?
The radical associated with 溺 is 氵 (water). This radical appears in many characters related to water.
What are the components of 溺?
溺 is composed of: 氵 (semantic), 弱 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰氵弱 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 溺?
Common words with 溺 include: 溺水 (nì shuǐ, "to drown"); 溺死 (nì sǐ, "to drown"); 沉溺 (chén nì, "variant of 沉溺[chen2 ni4]"); 溺爱 (nì ài, "to spoil"); 自溺 (zì nì, "to drown oneself"). There are over 12 compound words containing this character.
Is 溺 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 溺 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.