栏

欄
lán
noun HSK 6 #8,522

Meanings

  1. 1 fence
  2. 2 railing
  3. 3 column (text)

Examples

HSK 5
Tā měi zhōu gěi bàozhǐ xiě zhuānlán.
She writes a column for the newspaper every week.
HSK 7-9
Qǐng búyào kào zài lángān shàng.
Please don't lean on the railing.

Tips

memory
木 (wood) + 兰 (orchid) - a decorative wooden fence

Components

radical
木 mù
tree; wood
Left tree radical - the indexing radical, a pictograph of a tree with horizontal branches. Anchors 栏 in the wood/construction family: 桥 bridge, 板 plank, 柱 pillar, 柜 cabinet. Marks 栏 as a wooden structure - railings, fences, animal pens, and (by extension) the columns and 'fields' in newspapers and forms.
phonetic
兰 lán
orchid (here phonetic)
Right 兰 supplies the sound - lán exactly. Pure phonetic loan; the 'orchid' meaning contributes nothing semantically. Same phonetic family: 拦 to block, 烂 rotten, 拦 to obstruct. Simplified from traditional 欄, whose right side was the much busier 闌 (gate + 柬). The PRC reform reused 兰 (itself simplified from 蘭) as a cleaner phonetic across this whole series.

Stroke Order

栏 lán