How to Write 泅 (qiú) — Meaning “To swim”

Imagine a prisoner (囚) trying to escape by swimming (氵) across a river. The picture of a person in a box (囚) struggling in water helps you recall that 泅 means "to swim."

First write the water radical 氵 as three quick strokes (dot, dot, lift). Then write the outer frame of 囚: the left vertical, top horizontal, then right vertical, followed by the inner 人 (two strokes), and finally close the bottom horizontal line. A common mistake is making the water radical too wide or forgetting the bottom line of 囚.

泅 means "to swim" and uses 囚 as its right component. 汊 (chà) means a branch of a river and uses 叉 (fork) on the right, so it looks like water splitting. 㳄 (xián) is a rare character meaning "saliva" and combines 氵 with 欠 (yawn or owe), so its meaning is unrelated to swimming.

泅 is less common in daily speech but appears in formal or literary contexts, such as 泅水 (to swim) and 泅渡 (to swim across a river or body of water). It is often used in stories about military river crossings or heroic escapes, giving it a slightly dramatic or classical feel.

Common words containing 泅 include: 泅水 (qiú shuǐ) — To swim; 泅渡 (qiú dù) — To swim across (a river, etc.); 泅泳 (qiú yǒng) — To swim.