Meaning of 水泥
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- cement
Measure word: 袋
How to use 水泥
水泥 is the everyday word for cement, and people also use it loosely for concrete surfaces like roads and floors. It often appears before other nouns, as in 水泥地 (shuǐnídì, concrete floor) or 水泥路 (shuǐnílù, concrete road). Example: 工人正在搅拌水泥。(Gōngrén zhèngzài jiǎobàn shuǐní.) The workers are mixing cement.
水泥 is literally 水 (shuǐ, water) plus 泥 (ní, mud). Cement is a powder you mix with water until it becomes a thick mud that hardens.
Common mistake: Learners sometimes read 泥 with a fourth tone because of 腻 (nì), but in 水泥 it is second tone, ní. Also do not confuse 泥 (ní, mud) with 尼 (ní) without the water radical, which appears in names like 尼泊尔.
水泥 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Stroke order for each character
Open a character for its meaning, components and more words.
水 shuǐ · water · 4 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
泥 ní · mud · 8 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
Related words
Words that share a character with 水泥.
| 水果 | shuǐguǒ | fruit |
| 水平 | shuǐpíng | horizontal; level; a standard; a level (of ability, development etc) |
| 药水 | yàoshuǐ | medicine in liquid form; bottled medicine |
| 凉水 | liángshuǐ | cool water; unboiled water |
| 海水 | hǎishuǐ | seawater |
| 汽水 | qìshuǐ | soda pop; carbonated soft drink |
| 泪水 | lèishuǐ | teardrop; tears |
| 矿泉水 | kuàngquánshuǐ | mineral water |
| 开水 | kāishuǐ | boiled water; boiling water |
| 纯净水 | chúnjìngshuǐ | purified water |
| 雨水 | yǔshuǐ | rainwater; rainfall; rain |
| 水分 | shuǐfèn | moisture content; (fig.) overstatement; padding |
Questions about 水泥
What does 水泥 mean?
水泥 (shuǐní) means "cement" and is used as a noun.
How do you write 水泥?
水泥 is made of 2 characters: 水 (4 strokes), 泥 (8 strokes). That is 12 strokes in total.
Is 水泥 an HSK word?
Yes. 水泥 is on the HSK 6 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
What is the difference between 水泥 and 混凝土?
Strictly, 水泥 is cement, the binding powder, while 混凝土 (hùnníngtǔ) is concrete, the mix of cement, sand, gravel and water. In casual speech many people just say 水泥 for both.
What measure word is used with 水泥?
For bags of cement you say 一袋水泥 (yí dài shuǐní). For an amount by weight you can say 一吨水泥 (yì dūn shuǐní), one ton of cement.