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累

léi / lèi / lěi
adjective #1,222

Meanings

  1. 1 piled up; clustered (of fruit, scars, achievements)
  2. 2 burdensome; cumbersome

Examples

桃树上果实累累。
Táoshù shàng guǒshí léiléi.
The peach tree is laden with fruit.
别带太多行李，太累赘了。
Bié dài tài duō xíngli, tài léizhuì le.
Don't bring too much luggage — it's a real drag.

Tips

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The léi reading shows up almost exclusively in two compounds: 累累 (literary, 'clusters of') and 累赘 (everyday, 'cumbersome / a drag'). Outside these, you will rarely meet léi alone. The four-char idioms 伤痕累累 and 负债累累 keep the lěi tone — only the standalone reduplication 累累 for piled fruit / scars takes léi.

Components

radical
糸 mì
silk thread
Bottom silk radical 糸. The cord that ties the bundle together — and the etymological bridge to the variant character 纍 (rope, to bind), the historical source of this reading.
semantic
田 tián
field (here: bundle of cocoons)
Top 5 strokes — historically a stack of silk cocoons, now drawn as 田. For the léi reading this image is the most direct: bundles literally piled high, fruit clustered on a branch.

Stroke Order

累 léi