牢 (láo): prison; jail

Meanings

1 prison; jail
2 pen; enclosure (for livestock)
3 firm; secure (in compounds)

Characters

牢

lao

prison; firm; durable

Originally a pen for livestock (牛 cow inside 宀 roof) — hence 'confinement'

Examples

他被关进了牢里。

Tā bèi guān jìn le láo lǐ.

He was thrown into prison.

这个道理要牢牢记住。

Zhège dàolǐ yào láoláo jìzhù.

You must firmly remember this principle.

亡羊补牢，为时不晚。

Wángyángbǔláo, wéi shí bù wǎn.

It's not too late to mend the pen after the sheep is lost.

牢房里很暗。

Láofáng lǐ hěn àn.

The prison cell is very dark.

Tips

culture

亡羊补牢 (wáng yáng bǔ láo) is a famous idiom meaning 'to mend the sheepfold after losing a sheep' — it's never too late to fix a problem. Here 牢 means 'pen/enclosure.'

memory

The character has 宀 (roof) over 牛 (cow) — a cow under a roof is in a pen. Extended to mean prison (a pen for people).

Components

radical

牛 niú

ox; cow

Bottom 牛 is the ox radical and the indexing radical. Together with the roof above it pictures an ox secured under shelter — a livestock pen. From that came 'firm, secure, fast' and the extension to 'jail/prison' (a pen for people). 亡羊补牢 uses 牢 in the original 'pen' sense.

semantic

宀 mián

roof

Top 宀 is the roof radical, drawn as a covering. Here it depicts the roof of a pen — a structure built to keep an animal in. The original sense of 牢 was a livestock pen for an ox, so the roof is the shelter overhead. Family: 家, 宿, 安.