炼
Tap the pinyin to hear it
to refine; to smelt
- HSK 3.0
- Level 4
- Old HSK
- Level 3
- Strokes
- 9
- Radical
- 火 +5
- Structure
- Left–right 左右
- Traditional
- 煉
- Common rank
- #1,620
- Unicode
- U+70BC
Sound it out + + =
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
Words with 炼
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 炼金术士 | alchemist | |
| 真金不怕火炼 | True gold fears no fire. (idiom) | |
| 炼之未定 | to spend a long time thinking about sth while unable to reach a decision | |
| 炼金术 | alchemy | |
| 百炼成钢 | to be tempered into a steel | |
| 炼化 | to refine; refining (e.g. oil, chemicals etc) | |
| 炼字 | to craft one's words | |
| 炼制 | (chemistry) to refine | |
| 炼丹术 | maker of immortality pill; concocting magic pills | |
| 炼油 | to refine crude oil; to render animal fat | |
| 精炼 | to refine (a substance); to purify; to refine (one's skills, writing etc); refined; polish… | |
| 百炼钢 | high-grade well-tempered steel | |
| 炼油厂 | oil refinery | |
| 炼铁 | smelting iron | |
| 提炼 | to extract (ore, minerals etc); to refine; to purify; to process | |
| 精炼厂 | refinery | |
| 炼铁厂 | iron foundry | |
| 千锤百炼 | after hard work and numerous revisions (idiom); the vicissitudes of life | |
| 修炼 | (of Taoists) to practice austerities; to practice asceticism | |
| 洗炼 | variant of 洗練|洗练[xi3 lian4] |
Sound family
Characters sharing the sound component 柬 — compare how they read.