astringent, hesitate, reluctant, have diarrhea
渋 centers on a puckering, tightening quality: an astringent taste that makes you hesitate, a reluctant attitude, or a bodily reaction like diarrhea that feels constricting and urgent.
渋 is the modern simplified form of 澁. The older form combines 氵 (water) with a component that likely contributed the sound and the idea of astringency or stopping. The modern form replaces the complex right side with a simplified shape containing 止, but the exact historical development of the simplified components is uncertain.
Water 氵 stops 止 at the top right, like an astringent taste that makes your mouth pucker and hesitate. The reluctant feeling and the urgent need to go (diarrhea) both come from that same stopping-then-releasing sensation.
For ジュウ, imagine a jeweler tasting an astringent persimmon and hesitating before buying it: jew -> ジュウ, and the puckering taste makes him reluctant.
Shibuya City (special ward of Tokyo); Shibuya
(traffic) congestion; traffic jam; gridlock
kakishibu; astringent persimmon juice used as a dye or to treat wood, paper, etc.
astringent; bitter; puckery; rough; harsh; tart
to be reluctant (to do); to be unwilling (to do); to hesitate (to do); to grudge; to be tardy (in doing); to put off (doing)
bitterness; distress; pain; anguish; affliction
reluctantly; unwillingly
astringency; tartness
astringent persimmon
suffering; distress; difficulty; hardship; misery; being bogged down; hurdle
kakishibu; astringent persimmon juice used as a dye or to treat wood, paper, etc.
to hold up; to be steady
(stock market) steadiness
congestion caused by a traffic accident
traffic congestion; traffic jam; (traffic) deadlock
to grudge; to be stingy; to be unwilling to pay
to be unwilling to go out
to be reluctant to sell
huge (traffic) congestion; major traffic jam; complete standstill; total gridlock
ambiguous; obscure; equivocal