líng
verb

Meanings

  1. 1 (classical) (of rain) to fall in drops
  2. 2 (classical) raindrops; falling water beads

Examples

细雨一滴一滴落下打湿院子
Xìyǔ yìdī yìdī de luòxià, dǎshī le yuànzi.
A fine rain fell drop by drop, wetting the courtyard.

Tips

history
'rain falling in drops' is not used independently in modern Chinese. It is the source and phonetic of (the simplified 'spirit / clever', traditional ), (zero / fragmentary), and (age). You meet it only in classical text and etymology notes.
register
Archaic and literary only. survives in old texts and component breakdowns, not in speech.

Components

radical
rain
The 'rain' radical on top states the meaning directly: water coming down from the sky. It is the indexing radical of .
semantic
kǒu
mouth; (here) drop shapes
The three small boxes below the rain element are drawn as falling raindrops; with the rain above, pictures rain coming down bead by bead.

Stroke Order

líng