léi
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 (literary) the thick black rope used to bind a prisoner

Examples

Gōngzuò le yì zhěngtiān, tā lèi jí le.
After a whole day of work, he was exhausted.

Tips

history
No standalone use in modern Chinese; it survives only in the literary binome 缧绁 (imprisonment; fetters), made famous by the 论语. It is the silk radical plus phonetic .
register
Literary only; appears in classical texts and the fixed phrase 缧绁, never in speech.

Components

radical
silk; thread; cord
The left-side silk radical, contracted. It supplies the meaning of cord and binding, grouping the word with rope characters like and .
phonetic
lèi
to pile up; to bind; phonetic
Fills the right side and carries the sound, read léi. Its sense of winding and piling up also fits a coiled binding rope; the same element appears in .

Stroke Order

léi