冷 (lěng) · cold

Meanings

1 cold

Characters

冷

lěng

cold

冫 (ice) + 令 (to order) - cold as ice.

Examples

HSK 1

今天很冷。

Jīntiān hěn lěng.

It's cold today.

HSK 1

你冷不冷？

Nǐ lěng bù lěng?

Are you cold?

HSK 1

水太冷了。

Shuǐ tài lěng le.

The water is too cold.

Tips

usage

冷笑话 ('cold joke') is the Chinese term for a dad joke or a joke so bad it gives you chills instead of laughs.

mistakes

冷 is for temperature and atmosphere. For personality ('cold person'), Chinese also uses 冷, but 冷淡 (cold and indifferent) is more precise.

Components

radical

冫 bīng

ice (two-drop radical)

Left-side ice radical 冫 - two drops representing frozen water (distinct from the three-drop water radical 氵). Files cold-related characters: 冰 (ice), 凉 (cool), 冬 (winter), 冻 (freeze), 凛 (bitter cold). Provides all the meaning here while the right side just supplies sound.

phonetic

令 lìng

order; command

Right side 令 supplies the sound (lìng → lěng, a finals shift). 令 itself pictures a kneeling person receiving an order under a roof. No semantic contribution - purely phonetic. Same phonetic in 领 (neck/lead), 龄 (age), 铃 (bell), 邻 (neighbour).