璃

lí
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 glass

Examples

HSK 5
Bōli mén cā de hěn gānjìng.
The glass door was wiped very clean.
HSK 6
Zhè dòng dàlóu de wàiqiáng dōu shì bōli de.
The exterior walls of this building are all glass.

Tips

usage
Only used in 玻璃 = glass. 玻 and 璃 always appear together as a pair.

Components

radical
王 yù
jade (left-side form of 玉)
Left 王 is the jade radical - three stones threaded on a string, the side-form of 玉 on the left. Indexes 璃 in the precious-stone family with 珠 pearl, 瑕 flaw, 璧 disc. It is bound to 玻 in 玻璃, glass, treated as a kind of artificial jade.
phonetic
离 lí
to leave; depart
Right side 离 supplies the sound lí directly, no drift. 离 alone means 'to leave, to separate' - here purely phonetic, with no semantic role. Same phonetic in 篱 fence, 漓 drip, 璃 (which only really occurs in 玻璃). The whole compound 玻璃 transliterates from a Sanskrit term for crystal.

Stroke Order

璃 lí