牢 (láo): prison; jail

Meanings

1 prison; jail
2 pen; enclosure (for livestock)
3 firm; secure (in compounds)

Characters

牢

láo

prison; firm; durable

Originally a pen for livestock (牛 cow inside 宀 roof) - hence 'confinement'

Examples

HSK 2

这个道理要牢牢记住。

Zhège dàolǐ yào láoláo jìzhù.

You must firmly remember this principle.

HSK 3

他被关进了牢里。

Tā bèi guān jìn le láo lǐ.

He was thrown into prison.

HSK 7-9

亡羊补牢，为时不晚。

Wángyáng-bǔláo, wéishí bù wǎn.

It's not too late to mend the pen after the sheep is lost.

Tips

culture

亡羊补牢 (wáng yáng bǔ láo) is a famous idiom meaning 'to mend the sheepfold after losing a sheep' - it's never too late to fix a problem. Here 牢 means 'pen/enclosure.'

memory

The character has 宀 (roof) over 牛 (cow) - a cow under a roof is in a pen. Extended to mean prison (a pen for people).

Components

radical

牛 niú

ox; cow

Bottom 牛 is the ox radical and the indexing radical. Together with the roof above it pictures an ox secured under shelter - a livestock pen. From that came 'firm, secure, fast' and the extension to 'jail/prison' (a pen for people). 亡羊补牢 uses 牢 in the original 'pen' sense.

semantic

宀 mián

roof

Top 宀 is the roof radical, drawn as a covering. Here it depicts the roof of a pen - a structure built to keep an animal in. The original sense of 牢 was a livestock pen for an ox, so the roof is the shelter overhead. Family: 家, 宿, 安.