How to Write 湴 (bàn) — Meaning “Deep mud; slushy.”

Imagine walking on a muddy road and stepping into a deep puddle — the left side 氵 is water, and the right side 半 looks like half of your leg sinking into slush. So 湴 means the deep mud that almost swallows half of your foot.

Pay attention to the left side: the water radical 氵 should be written with three dots, not two. The right side 半 has four strokes: a dot, a left-slanting stroke, a horizontal line, and a vertical line; make sure the horizontal line is straight and the vertical line goes through the middle. A common mistake is making the 半 too wide — keep it compact so the whole character stays balanced.

湴 (bàn) means deep mud or slushy ground, while 洁 (jié) means clean or pure and uses the water radical with 吉 (jí). 洄 (huí) means a whirlpool or backtracking water, combining 氵 with 回 (huí). Visually, the right side of 湴 is 半, 洁 has 吉, and 洄 has 回 — so they are easy to tell apart by their different phonetic components.

湴 is a rare character not found in common HSK vocabulary, but it appears in regional dialects and literary descriptions of muddy conditions. You might encounter it in phrases like 湴路 (bàn lù, muddy road) or 烂湴 (làn bàn, slushy ground) in stories about rural life or heavy rain.

Common words containing 湴 include: 湴泥 (bàn ní) — Deep mud.; 烂湴 (làn bàn) — muddy; slushy; 湴路 (bàn lù) — Muddy road..