靓 (liàng): beautiful

Meanings

1 beautiful
2 pretty
3 handsome

Characters

靓

liàng

beautiful; pretty

Examples

HSK 4

这个靓仔是谁？

Zhège liàngzǎi shì shéi?

Who is this handsome guy?

HSK 5

她今天打扮得很靓。

Tā jīntiān dǎban de hěn liàng.

She's dressed up really pretty today.

Tips

register

靓 is heavily used in Cantonese-influenced Mandarin, especially in southern China. 靓仔 (handsome guy) and 靓女 (pretty girl) are common. In standard Mandarin, 漂亮 or 帅 are more typical.

usage

The everyday 'good-looking' sense is read liàng. A separate literary reading jìng means to apply makeup or adorn oneself, and by extension elegantly dressed; it is mostly seen in classical texts.

Components

radical

见 jiàn

to see

Right-side 见 is the see/look radical (simplified from 見, an eye 目 over standing legs 儿). It indexes 靓 in the family of looking/being-looked-at chars - and the meaning is exactly that: something striking enough to be seen, eye-catching. Same family as 观, 觉, 视 - visual perception verbs.

phonetic

青 qīng

blue-green; youthful

Left-side 青 supplies the sound (qīng → liàng, drift via Middle Chinese). 青 itself depicts the fresh blue-green of new plants and carries connotations of youth and beauty - that 'fresh and good-looking' hint carries into 靓's 'pretty/handsome' meaning. Same phonetic in 静, 情.