楞 (lèng) · to be stunned, to stare blankly, to be dazed

Meanings

1 to be stunned
2 to stare blankly
3 to be dazed

Characters

楞

lèng

stunned / dazed (variant of 愣)

Examples

HSK 4

他听到这个消息楞了一下。

Tā tīngdào zhège xiāoxi lèng le yíxià.

He was stunned for a moment when he heard the news.

HSK 5

别楞着，赶紧动手吧。

Bié lèng zhe, gǎnjǐn dòngshǒu ba.

Don't just stand there dumbstruck - get to work.

Tips

mistakes

楞 has two readings: léng (variant of 棱, "edge / ridge"; also in 楞迦 Lengjia, the Lankavatara Sutra) and lèng (variant of 愣, "be stunned / dazed"). The lèng reading is far more common in everyday text; when you see 楞 in a sentence about reaction or emotion, it's lèng.

Components

radical

木 mù

tree; wood

Tree radical on the left, pictograph of trunk and roots. Originally 楞 named the squared edge of a piece of timber, so the wood marker does direct semantic work: a ridge, corner, or angle of a wooden beam. The timber sense persists in 楞 "a ridge", tying it to the carpentry family alongside 棱 edge and 板 plank.

semantic

罒 wǎng

net (radical form of 网)

Top-right is the horizontal net radical 罒, a sideways grid sitting over 方 as part of a fused phonetic block. The net imagery has no direct semantic role here; it survives as graphic residue from the older phonetic shape that lent the lèng reading.

phonetic

方 fāng

square; direction

Bottom-right 方 is the surviving phonetic anchor; its old reading drifted via a chain of sound changes into the modern lèng. The "square" meaning of 方 plays no semantic role in 楞; the combination 罒+方 is best read as a single fused right-side block that carries sound. Today 楞 mostly appears in 发楞 "to be stunned" (also written 发愣).