noun

Meanings

  1. 1 foot of a mountain
  2. 2 foothills

Examples

Wǒmen zài shān lù dā qǐ le zhàngpeng.
We pitched our tents at the foot of the mountain.
Cūnzi zuòluò zài Huàshān běi lù.
The village sits at the northern foot of Mount Hua.

Tips

usage
Almost always appears as 山麓 'mountain foot' or with a directional prefix (北麓 'northern foot', 南麓 'southern foot'). Rarely stands alone in modern Chinese.
memory
The character is 鹿 (deer) sitting under (forest) - picture deer grazing in the wooded foothills below a mountain. The 鹿 also gives the sound (lù).

Components

radical
鹿
deer
鹿 depicts a deer in profile with antlers and slender legs. As radical it anchors by sound (lù exact) and hints at the place where deer roam - wooded foothills below the peaks. The most pictorial radical in the entry.
phonetic
lín
forest; grove
(two trees together) sits on top, both phonetic and semantic. Sound (lín drifted to lù) hints faintly while the visual signals trees - exactly what covers the lower slopes of a mountain. Wooded foothills in two strokes of meaning.

Stroke Order