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Change log entry 93252
Processed by: becky82 (2026-01-27 01:45:54 UTC)
Comment: << review queue entry 85355 - submitted by 'becky82' >>
This word came up here: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/q/63842/8099

At first I thought 酒水 was only alcoholic drinks, since it looks like 酒 modifies 水 (like most nouns either beginning with 酒 or ending in 水), but that's not correct. It's more like an abbreviation "酒 (alcohol) + 水 (non-alcohol)", and I'd like to modify the definition to make this clearer.

You can see it on menus; here are three examples:

- https://www.16pic.com/vector/pic_4899463.html
- https://www.sucaisucai.com/sucai/11434026.html
- https://nipic.com/show/44153480.html

It's also on warning signs forbidding 自带酒水 (taking your own drinks, or BYO).

If I use 美团 to get home delivery from 家家悦 (a supermarket here in China), it has a sidebar 酒水饮料 and if I click that, it lists water, Sprite, etc., as well as beer, wine, etc.

It seems a bit clearer to only translate 酒水 to "beverages", since it only functions as a noun (unlike the English "drink", which is also a verb, and has figurative usages), and seems more formal than 饮料 (酒水 is used in hospitality).

I also prefer using the plural "beverages" since 酒水 is often used as a mass noun (so normally there is no measure word/classifier for 酒水).
Diff:
- 酒水 酒水 [[jiu3shui3]] /beverage; drink/
+ 酒水 酒水 [[jiu3shui3]] /alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages (e.g. on a menu)/
By MDBG 2026
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