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

这个消息令人振奋。

Zhège xiāoxi lìng rén zhènfèn.

This news is inspiring.

他下了一道命令。

Tā xià le yī dào mìnglìng.

He issued an order.

令尊身体还好吗？

Lìng zūn shēntǐ hái hǎo ma?

Is your father in good health?

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).