戾 (lì): violent / fierce

Meanings

1 violent / fierce
2 perverse / contrary
3 to violate / go against

Characters

戾

lì

violent / perverse

Examples

他性情暴戾,谁也不敢招惹。

Tā xìngqíng bàolì, shéi yě bù gǎn zhāorě.

He has a violent temper - no one dares cross him.

戾气太重的人很难与人相处。

Lìqì tài zhòng de rén hěn nán yǔ rén xiāngchǔ.

People with too much aggression find it hard to get along with others.

Tips

usage

Rarely stands alone in modern Chinese. Appears mostly in compounds: 暴戾 (brutal), 乖戾 (eccentric/perverse), 戾气 (hostile aura/aggression). The internet-era term 戾气 has become common shorthand for the toxic aggression on social media.

history

The character 戾 shows a dog 犬 under a door 户, picturing the dog squeezing through, body bent. From this 'bending/twisting' image came the senses of going against, violating, and being perverse.

Components

radical

户 hù

door; household

Top-left door radical, pictograph of a single-leaf door, half of the double-leaf 門. As the indexing radical it gives the framing image for 戾: a dog forcing its way under a barely-open door. The original sense was that violent, perverse pushing-through, which became the modern 'fierce, perverse, contrary' meanings.

semantic

犬 quǎn

dog

Lower 犬, pictograph of a dog with its tail curled up. Tucked beneath the door it gives the compound ideograph reading: a dog twisting itself under or through a door, the picture of forced, contrary motion. From this came 'violent, perverse,' and the classical verb sense 'to violate / go against'.