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丽

麗
lì / lí
adjective #2,408

Meanings

  1. 1 beautiful
  2. 2 gorgeous

Examples

HSK 4
她很美丽。
Tā hěn měilì.
She is very beautiful.
HSK 4
丽江是一个美丽的城市。
Lìjiāng shì yí gè měilì de chéngshì.
Lijiang is a beautiful city.
HSK 7-9
这里的风景绚丽多彩。
Zhèlǐ de fēngjǐng xuànlì duōcǎi.
The scenery here is gorgeously colorful.

Tips

usage
丽 is almost always bound - it lives inside compounds rather than standing alone. The core beauty words: 美丽 (beautiful), 华丽 (magnificent), 壮丽 (majestic), 秀丽 (pretty, esp. of scenery). Also the Yunnan tourist city 丽江 and a stock syllable for transliterating Western female names ending in -ly / -lia (Mary, Emily, Lily, Marilyn).
mistakes
Two readings. The lì reading covers all the 'beautiful' compounds (this entry). The rare second reading 丽 (see the lí entry) appears only in the Korea-related word family - 高丽 Goryeo, 高丽参 Korean ginseng. Outside Korea contexts, always lì.

Components

radical
丶 zhǔ
dot stroke
Indexed under Kangxi #3 丶 (dot) because of the two dots tucked inside the paired chambers below the cap. The lower half pictures twin ornamental antler-frames with dot ornaments - a stylised survivor of the traditional 麗 deer. Modern silhouette doesn't decompose into independent units; this whole region is treated as one indexing-radical block.
ideograph
一 yī
one; top horizontal
Top horizontal acts as a unifying bar capping the twin chambers below, preparing the eye to read them as a paired pattern. Pure positional marker rather than the numeral one. Historically part of traditional 麗 (a deer with paired ornamental antlers); the simplified silhouette retains only this connecting bar.

Stroke Order

丽 lì