羸 (léi) · lean; emaciated; weak and frail

Meanings

1 lean; emaciated; weak and frail

Characters

羸

léi

lean; emaciated; weak

Examples

HSK 7-9

连年战乱，百姓羸弱，土地贫瘠。

Liánnián zhànluàn, bǎixìng léiruò, tǔdì pínjí.

Years of war left the old people frail and the land impoverished.

Tips

history

羸 is literary and rarely used alone. It survives in formal compounds like 羸弱 ('frail and weak') and 羸瘦 ('emaciated'); the everyday word is 瘦弱.

register

Literary register - classical and formal writing about frailty and poverty, not modern conversation.

Components

radical

羊 yáng

sheep

羊 the sheep radical is the indexing radical, originally evoking a thin, scrawny animal. It indexes the character but no longer carries the meaning directly.

phonetic

亡 wáng

to lose; perish

The top is a 亡-over-口 element giving the sound (the 羸/嬴/赢 family all share it). Its 'loss / wasting away' flavor pairs well with the meaning 'emaciated'.

semantic

月 ròu

flesh; body

月 here is the flesh form of 肉 (not the moon), pointing to the body - a wasted, fleshless frame.

semantic

凡 fán

ordinary; mundane

凡 sits at the lower right as one of the cluster of pieces that, with 月 and 羊, build the wasted-body image; it is shared across the 羸/赢/嬴 family.