渚 (zhǔ) · small islet, sandbar in a river, riverbank (classical)

Meanings

1 small islet
2 sandbar in a river
3 riverbank (classical)

Characters

渚

zhǔ

islet / sandbar / bank (classical)

Examples

HSK 7-9

白鸟栖息在江心的小渚上。

Bái niǎo qīxī zài jiāngxīn de xiǎo zhǔ shàng.

White birds rested on a small islet in the middle of the river.

HSK 7-9

「清渚城边秋草芊芊」是古诗中的意境。

" Qīng zhǔ chéng biān qiū cǎo qiān qiān " shì gǔshī zhōng de yìjìng.

'Clear islet by the city, autumn grass lush and green' evokes the imagery of classical poetry.

Tips

register

渚 is an archaic and poetic word rarely used in modern spoken Chinese. It appears in classical poetry (诗经, 楚辞) to describe small sandy islands or banks along rivers, evoking a serene, melancholic atmosphere.

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water (radical form of 水)

Three-drops water radical on the left - the side-form of 水, the indexing radical. A 渚 is a small sandbar or islet rising out of a river or lake, so the radical does literal work, placing it in the riverside family with 河 (river), 湖 (lake), 洲 (continent/large islet), 沙 (sand).

phonetic

者 zhě

one who; (nominaliser) (here phonetic)

Right side 者 supplies the sound (zhě to zhǔ with tone and vowel shift, a regular pattern). It originally pictured a sugarcane stalk and is used today only as a particle, so it carries no semantic weight here. Same phonetic anchors 都 (capital), 著 (manifest), 储 (store), 暑 (heat).