啬

嗇
sè
adjective

Meanings

  1. 1 stingy; miserly
  2. 2 sparing

Characters

Examples

HSK 7-9
Tā fēicháng lìnsè, shěbude huā yìfēnqián.
He is very stingy and reluctant to spend a single cent.
HSK 7-9
Búyào nàme lìnsè duì biérén de zànměi.
Don't be so mean with your praise of others.

Tips

usage
啬 is bound, used almost only in 吝啬 ('stingy, miserly'). It can describe being mean with money or, figuratively, sparing with praise or effort.
history
啬 originally pictured grain being gathered and locked in a storehouse. From 'hoarding the harvest' came the modern sense of being unwilling to part with anything - stinginess.

Components

ideograph
土 tǔ
fused grain element
The top is a fused graphic of harvested grain (an old 來, wheat, shape) - stylized and no longer separable into independent parts. It represents the crop being brought in to be stored away.
semantic
回 huí
enclosed storehouse
回 here is the picture of a granary or walled storehouse. Grain shut inside walls and grudgingly kept is the root image of 'miserly'.

Filed under radical 十 (shí, #24) by convention. 十 is not a separate component in 啬, so no strokes are highlighted.

Stroke Order

啬 sè