湖 hú lake
How to remember 湖: 氵 water + 胡 recklessly = lake. The water is ice cold, but the teenager jumps in recklessly and swims out to the middle of the lake.
Component breakdown
湖 = 氵 water + 胡 recklessly
- 氵 water
- 胡 recklessly
The water is ice cold, but the teenager jumps in recklessly and swims out to the middle of the lake.
How it is used
- A concrete, freestanding noun for "lake," used directly with a place name: 西湖 Xī Hú (West Lake, Hangzhou).
- 湖泊 húpō is the formal collective word for "lakes" (bodies of water in general, as in geography texts), while 湖 alone names a specific one.
- Appears in the idiom 五湖四海 wǔhú-sìhǎi, "all corners of the country/the whole nation," used when talking about people gathered from everywhere.