In this paper, the basic and the extensional meaning of the Chinese word, shui (水), and the Korean word, mul (물), were compared for their similarities and differences, based on the different word meaning characteristics. Both words have the basic meaning of “water.” The extensional meaning and usage of these two words overlap semantically under certain conditions, but they have different characteristics in the two languages from the perspective of word formation, reflecting the differences in thinking and cognitive framework of the different cultural backgrounds. The research also found that the words differ greatly in terms of semantic extension. Mul in particular had a far richer and more diverse extended semantic meaning than shui.