吏 (lì): government official (historical)

Meanings

1 government official (historical)
2 minor official
3 functionary

Characters

吏

lì

official, functionary

Examples

古代的地方官吏负责征收赋税。

Gǔdài de dìfāngguān lì fùzé zhēngshōu fùshuì.

Local officials in ancient times were responsible for collecting taxes.

他在县衙做了一名小吏。

Tā zài xiàn yá zuò le yī míng xiǎo lì.

He served as a minor official at the county magistrate's office.

Tips

history

In imperial China, 吏 (lì) referred to minor clerks and functionaries, distinct from 官 (guān), the appointed officials. 官吏 together means the officialdom as a whole.

memory

吏 looks like 史 (history/historian) with an extra stroke — officials were the ones who recorded and enacted history.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Lower 口 — mouth radical, the indexing radical of 吏. In the original picture it represents the tablet or container of brush-records held below the hand, with the mouth-shape later reanalyzed as 'the official's mouth that proclaims orders.' The mid-level government clerk is the one who speaks the law to the people, hence the radical assignment.

semantic

丈 zhàng

elder; here a graphic residue (was hand-holding-brush)

Top three strokes look like 丈 today but originally pictured a hand gripping an implement — the same upper element shared by 史 (historian) and 事 (affair). The hand grasps a brush or tablet, the tool of the literate clerk who is the original 吏. Visual overlap below makes 吏 a fused compound rather than a clean stack.