轻 (qīng): light (weight)

Meanings

1 light (weight)
2 gentle
3 slight

Characters

轻

qīng

light (weight); gentle

Contains 车 (vehicle) — a lightly loaded cart.

Examples

这个箱子很轻。

Zhège xiāngzi hěn qīng.

This suitcase is very light.

请轻一点，孩子在睡觉。

Qǐng qīng yīdiǎn, háizi zài shuìjiào.

Please be quiet, the child is sleeping.

她轻轻地关上了门。

Tā qīngqīng de guānshàng le mén.

She gently closed the door.

Tips

usage

The opposite is 重 (zhòng, heavy). 年轻 = young (literally 'light in years').

grammar

轻轻地 (qīngqīng de) is the adverb form meaning 'gently/softly'.

Components

radical

车 chē

cart (radical)

Left cart radical — the indexing radical, depicting a stylized chariot viewed from above. Originally 轻 meant 'a lightly loaded chariot.' From 'light cart' came the general adjective 'light in weight,' which extended to gentle, slight, frivolous. Same radical fronts 转 to turn, 输 to lose, 较 to compare.

semantic

又 yòu

right hand (semantic, top of phonetic)

Top-right 又 — a right hand viewed from above. In 轻 it sits over 工 to form the simplified phonetic-bundle 圣 (which replaced traditional 巠 'underground stream' during the 1956 reform). The hand is graphic residue here, not a semantic anchor — just the upper half of the contracted phonetic.

phonetic

工 gōng

work (bottom of phonetic)

Bottom-right 工 — together with 又 above forms 圣, the simplified phonetic that replaced traditional 巠 in 轻. The pair supplies the sound (the original 巠 reading jīng drifted to qīng, regular palatal alternation also seen in 经 jīng, 径 jìng, 茎 jīng). Pure phonetic role for the lower stack.