lòng / nòng
noun #271

Meanings

  1. 1 lane
  2. 2 alley

Characters

Examples

HSK 4
Zhè tiáo lǐlòng yǒu shàng bǎi nián de lìshǐ.
This lane neighborhood has over a hundred years of history.
HSK 6
Shànghǎi de lǎo lòng lǐ cáng zhe xǔduō gùshi.
Many stories are hidden in the old lanes of Shanghai.
HSK 7-9
Tā zhù zài lòngtáng shēnchù.
He lives deep inside the lane.

Tips

culture
in this reading is essentially a Shanghai-region word for a narrow residential lane between rows of 石库门 townhouses. It mainly survives in two compounds - 弄堂 and 里弄 - which name the iconic Shanghai version of the Beijing 胡同.
mistakes
Only read as lòng inside lane-compounds. Free-standing or with a verb-result complement it's always nòng. If you see before a verb of doing/handling (e.g. 弄好, 弄错), it's the verb reading, not this noun.

Components

radical
gǒng
two hands joined
Bottom two-hands radical - the indexing component, same as in the nòng reading. The lòng pronunciation is a regional reuse of the same graph for an unrelated noun meaning 'lane / alley', preserved mainly in Shanghai-region words like 弄堂 and 里弄.
semantic
jade
Top jade - same graphic as in the nòng reading: a string of jade discs held up between two hands. The lòng 'lane' sense is a later regional borrowing of the same character; the jade picture doesn't motivate the lane meaning, but the graph is shared. here is a 4-stroke contraction (standalone is 5).

Stroke Order

lòng