令 (lìng): to order; to command

Meanings

1 to order; to command
2 to cause; to make (someone do or feel something)
3 decree; warrant; writ
4 season
5 honorific prefix for the listener's relatives (your)
6 virtuous; admirable
7 short song or poem (in classical lyric)
8 government position (old)

Characters

令

lìng

to order; to command; to cause

Examples

HSK 5

他下了一道命令。

Tā xià le yī dào mìnglìng.

He issued an order.

HSK 5

令尊身体还好吗？

Lìng zūn shēntǐ hái hǎo ma?

Is your father in good health?

HSK 7-9

这个消息令人振奋。

Zhège xiāoxi lìng rén zhènfèn.

This news is inspiring.

Tips

grammar

令人 + adjective is one of the most common patterns in formal Chinese: 令人失望 (disappointing), 令人感动 (touching), 令人惊讶 (surprising). It is more literary than the colloquial equivalent 让人.

culture

In imperial China 令 named official decrees and the magistrates who carried them out - 县令 was the county magistrate, 尚书令 the head of the imperial secretariat. The honorific use (令尊 'your father', 令郎 'your son') comes from the older sense 'fine, admirable' - calling another's relatives 'admirable' as a courtesy.

mistakes

令 has two minor extra readings beyond the everyday 4th-tone command sense. As 令 (3rd tone) it is a classifier for a ream of 500 sheets of paper (industry term, almost never spoken). As 令 (2nd tone) it appears bound in 脊令 (the wagtail bird, classical) and the two-character surname 令狐 (Taiwan reads this lìnghú). Default to lìng unless these specific contexts apply.

Components

radical

人 rén

person

Top person radical (Kangxi #9), here drawn as a wide inverted-V roof shape rather than the usual upright 人. Pictures the figure issuing the order, standing over the kneeling subordinate below. The same canopy-style 人 top appears across the people-and-actions family: 今 (now), 会 (meet), 介 (between), 余 (I, remain).

semantic

卩 jié

kneeling person; seal (semantic)

Bottom kneeling-person component - standalone 卩 depicts a person bent forward in deference. The oracle-bone form of 令 showed a roofed figure giving a command to this kneeler below: literally 'orders descending on a subordinate', which produced the senses 'to order, decree, cause'. The same kneeler appears in 印 (seal), 即 (immediately), 卷 (scroll), 卯 (4th earthly branch).