IDENTITY
沉chénto sink; deep; heavy
HSK 5Top 700
CORE MEANING
to sink; deep; heavy
- Part of speech
- verb
- Register
- neutral
Senses
- 1.to sinkHSK5
- 2.deep; heavyHSK6
FORM & BREAKDOWN
- Radical
- 氵water radical (shuǐ)
- strokes
- 7
- Structure
- left-right compound
- IDS sequence
- ⿰氵冗
- water
- gives the sound chén (historical)
USAGE
Common words
沉默chénmòsilent
沉重chénzhòngheavy
下沉xiàchénto sink
Graded examples
他沉默了很长时间。Tā chénmò le hěn cháng shíjiān.HSK5
He stayed silent for a long time.
RELATIONS
In these chengyu
Lookalike — don’t mix up
- 沈
LEARNING
Memory aid
Water (氵) bearing down (冗) — sinking, heavy. (From 沈.)
- HSK version
- 3.0
- Frequency rank
- #700
- Memory aid
- memory-aid
TRUST & SOURCES
- Reviewed by
- AI-assisted editorial review
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-15
Sources
- CC-CEDICT 2026-01-01
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