/ liù
adjective #37,901

Meanings

  1. 1 busy
  2. 2 mediocre; commonplace

Examples

Tā yìzhěngtiān dōu hěn mánglù, méi shíjiān xiūxi.
He has been busy all day with no time to rest.
Tā lùlùwúwéi de guò le yìshēng.
He drifted through his whole life accomplishing nothing.
Gōngrén zài gōngdì shàng mángmánglùlù de jìnjìnchūchū.
Workers were busily coming and going on the construction site.

Tips

usage
Read lù in the everyday words 忙碌 ('busy') and 碌碌无为 ('mediocre, achieving nothing'). The separate liù reading appears only in the farm-tool word (a stone roller).

Components

radical
shí
stone; rock
The stone radical on the left points to the character's origin as a word about stones (it once meant common, ordinary rock), which gave rise to the figurative sense of being commonplace.
phonetic
to record
Supplies the sound on the right: lù gives the reading directly. It contributes no 'record' meaning here.

Stroke Order