In East Asian languages, 吸 is commonly used in compounds relating to breathing, drinking, or absorbing.
Frequently paired with 

to call, to cry out, to shout, to exhale, breathe out

 (호, exhale) as 呼吸 (호흡) to express the full cycle of breathing.
In modern Chinese, it often conveys both literal (inhale, absorb) and figurative (attract, draw in) meanings.

mouth, opening, orifice

 (구, mouth) — semantic component, indicating the act of the mouth.


to reach, to extend to, to affect, to touch

 (급, to reach, to extend) — phonetic component, providing the sound.

吸收 (흡수) — absorption, to absorb
呼吸 (호흡) — breathing (exhalation and inhalation)
吸煙 (흡연) — smoking (tobacco)
吸引 (흡인) — to attract, to draw in

Characters

Words

Vocabulary

name

sovereign, monarch, queen, empress

official, functionary, clerk

to spit, to spew from the mouth

to face, to turn toward

ruler, lord, sovereign

not, to deny, to block

to contain, to hold in the mouth, to keep inside, to include

to inhale, to suck in, to drink, to absorb, to smoke (as in cigarettes)

I, me, first-person pronoun

to announce, to inform, to tell, to report, to accuse, to sue (in legal contexts)

all around, complete, thorough

taste

to scold, to reproach, to exhale, to blow air

life, fate, destiny

harmony, peace

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Chinese character

Explore 214 Chinese radicals and their derived characters. Sort by radical or stroke count, and view the complete list of official Hanja radicals.

吸

Etymology

Usage in Korean

Words that derived from 吸

Additional notes

Neighboring characters in the dictionary

References