仑 (lún): (bound form) logical sequence;…

Meanings

1 (bound form) logical sequence; orderly arrangement
2 used in transliterations

Characters

仑

lún

orderly sequence; logical arrangement; bound morpheme in transliterations

Examples

昆仑山是中国著名的山脉。

Kūnlún shān shì Zhōngguó zhùmíng de shānmài.

The Kunlun Mountains are a famous mountain range in China.

拿破仑是法国历史上著名的皇帝。

Nápòlún shì Fǎguó lìshǐ shàng zhùmíng de huángdì.

Napoleon was a famous emperor in French history.

Tips

usage

仑 rarely appears alone in modern Chinese. It functions mainly as a bound morpheme in names: 昆仑 (Kunlun Mountains), 拿破仑 (Napoleon), 库仑 (Coulomb, the unit of electric charge). In its classical sense it means 'orderly sequence of thought.'

Components

radical

人 rén

person

Top 人 — pictograph of a striding figure seen from the side, here the indexing radical. 仑 is the simplified form of 侖, where the top 亼 (gathering roof) was reduced to plain 人. Today 仑 lives mostly inside compounds like 昆仑 (the Kunlun mountains) and as phonetic in 论 / 轮 / 伦.

semantic

匕 bǐ

ladle; spoon

Bottom 匕 — pictograph of a ladle or short curved knife. In traditional 侖 the bottom was 冊 (bundle of bamboo slips), simplified to this cleaner two-stroke 匕. Carries the 'orderly arrangement' sense that gave 仑 its meaning: things laid out by category — surviving in 论 discuss-orderly, 伦 ethics-relations, 轮 wheel-rotation.