诔 (lěi): (literary) a eulogy recounting…

Meanings

1 (literary) a eulogy recounting a dead person's deeds
2 (literary) to eulogize the dead

Characters

诔

lěi

eulogy for the dead

Examples

孔子去世时，鲁公为他作诔。

Kǒngzǐ qùshì shí, Lǔ gōng wèi tā zuò lěi.

When Confucius died, the Duke of Lu composed a eulogy for him.

Tips

history

诔 is not used independently in modern Chinese. It was a classical funeral genre: a recital of the deceased's deeds, used by superiors for inferiors, which also fixed the posthumous title. The most famous is Cao Xueqin's 芙蓉女儿诔 in Dream of the Red Chamber.

register

Classical / literary only — a historical text genre, seen in old works, not in modern speech.

Components

radical

讠 yán

speech; words (left-side form of 言)

The speech radical 讠 (side form of 言) marks 诔 as a kind of formal utterance — here a spoken eulogy. Same radical as 谥 posthumous title and 诵 to recite.

phonetic

耒 lěi

a plow handle

Right side 耒 (an ancient plow) supplies the sound lěi directly, no tone change. It contributes no 'plow' meaning here — it is purely the phonetic tag for this eulogy word.