莱 (lái): name element (used in translite…

Meanings

1 name element (used in transliterations)
2 goosefoot (archaic plant name)

Characters

莱

lái

used in transliterations

Examples

莱昂纳多是著名的演员。

Lái'áng nà duō shì zhùmíng de yǎnyuán.

Leonardo is a famous actor.

他住在莱茵河边。

Tā zhù zài Láiyīn hébiān.

He lives by the Rhine River.

Tips

usage

莱 is almost exclusively used in transliterations of foreign names and places: 莱昂纳多 (Leonardo), 莱茵河 (Rhine), 莱斯特 (Leicester), 布莱尔 (Blair).

Components

radical

艹 cǎo

grass (top radical)

Top grass radical — the indexing radical, the 3-stroke top-position form of 草. Originally 莱 named goosefoot, a hardy edible weed in the Chenopodium family, so the grass radical points straight at that plant origin. Same radical sits over almost every plant-and-herb character: 花, 草, 茶, 药, 菜.

phonetic

来 lái

to come (phonetic)

Bottom 来 supplies the sound — lái exact match. 来 was itself originally a wheat-stalk pictograph, later borrowed for the verb 'to come.' The shared sound made 莱 the natural transliteration choice for foreign syllables 'la-/lai-,' which is now its main job: 莱昂纳多 Leonardo, 莱茵河 Rhine.