Meaning of 水灾
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- flood
- flood damage
How to use 水灾
水灾 is a formal-leaning noun used in news, reports and talk about natural disasters. It often appears with verbs like 发生 (fāshēng, to occur) or 遭受 (zāoshòu, to suffer). Example: 去年这里发生了严重的水灾。(Qùnián zhèlǐ fāshēng le yánzhòng de shuǐzāi.) Last year there was a serious flood here.
水 (shuǐ) means water and 灾 (zāi) means disaster, so 水灾 is a water disaster. Picture 灾 as fire 火 under a roof 宀, a house in trouble, and here the trouble is water.
Common mistake: Learners often write 灾 with the wrong top part, mixing it up with 灭 (miè, to extinguish). 灾 has the roof 宀 on top, while 灭 has a single flat stroke over 火. Also note that 水灾 is a noun for the disaster, so do not use it as a verb meaning "to flood".
Stroke order for each character
Open a character for its meaning, components and more words.
水 shuǐ · water · 4 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
灾 zāi · disaster · 7 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
Related words
Words that share a character with 水灾.
| 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 |
| 灾难 | zāinàn | disaster; catastrophe |
| 火灾 | huǒzāi | serious fire (in a city or a forest etc) |
Questions about 水灾
What does 水灾 mean?
水灾 (shuǐzāi) means "flood; flood damage" and is used as a noun.
How do you write 水灾?
水灾 is made of 2 characters: 水 (4 strokes), 灾 (7 strokes). That is 11 strokes in total.
Is 水灾 an HSK word?
Yes. 水灾 is on the HSK 5 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
How is 水灾 written in traditional Chinese?
In traditional characters, 水灾 is written 水災.
What is the difference between 水灾 and 洪水?
洪水 (hóngshuǐ) is the flood water itself, the rising rivers. 水灾 is the disaster and damage the flooding causes. You can say 洪水造成了水灾, the flood waters caused a flood disaster.
How do you say "the city was flooded" without using 水灾?
You can use 被淹 (bèi yān), as in 城市被淹了 (chéngshì bèi yān le), the city was flooded. This describes the action, while 水灾 names the event.