Several parts combine into one character.

The character for "tears" diverged in interesting ways across the three CJK regions. The traditional 淚 combined 氵 (water) with 戾 (to deviate / to be twisted out of shape — a face contorted by weeping) as a phonetic-semantic compound. Japanese shinjitai 涙 simplified the right side. Mainland simplified 泪 went a different direction entirely — replacing the right side with 目 (eye), creating perhaps the most pictorially honest version: literally "water from the eye." The Mainland simplification is closer to a pure ideograph than the original.

Korean reading "ru" (or "nu" word-initially per phonotactic rules). Largely formal/literary: 落淚 (nangnu, shedding tears), 淚液 (nuaek, tear fluid — medical), 感淚 (gamnu, tears of being moved), 血淚 (hyeollu, "blood tears" — extreme grief). The everyday Korean word for tears is the native (nunmul, "eye-water") — a perfect Korean parallel to the simplified 泪.

Mandarin lèi, 4th tone (simplified 泪). 眼泪 (yǎnlèi, "eye-tears" — note the doubling; both characters reference eyes/water for emphasis), 泪水 (lèishuǐ, tears), 流泪 (liúlèi, to shed tears), 含泪 (hánlèi, "holding back tears"). Common in songs, poetry, and emotional speech.

Japanese on-reading ルイ (rui) is uncommon, surviving in 涙腺 (ruisen, tear ducts) and 感涙 (kanrui, tears of emotion). The kun-reading なみだ (namida) is the standard Japanese word for tears in all contexts: 涙が出る (namida ga deru, tears come), 涙を流す (namida o nagasu, to shed tears). Japanese poetry and song are saturated with namida — it is one of the most poetically loaded words in the language.

Memory aid: water (氵) flowing from the place where 戾 / 目 (the contorted face / the eye) meets feeling — tears.