隶
Tap the pinyin to hear it
(bound form) a person in servitude; low-ranking subordinate; (bound form) to be subordinate to; (bound form) clerical script (the style of characters intermediate between ancient seal and modern regular characters)
- HSK 3.0
- Level 7–9
- Old HSK
- Level 6
- Strokes
- 8
- Radical
- 隶 itself
- Structure
- Top–bottom 上下
- Traditional
- 隶
- Common rank
- #2,904
- Unicode
- U+96B6
Sound it out + =
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
How 隶 is formed
Ideographic compound (会意字)
A hand 彐 threshing rice
Components 彐 氺
How to remember it
bondservant · Heisig RSH #2226
snowflake + rake
Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.
Words with 隶
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 奴隶制度 | slavery | |
| 奴隶社会 | slave-owning society (precedes feudal society 封建社會|封建社会 in Marxist theory) | |
| 性奴隶 | sex slave | |
| 隶体 | see 隸書|隶书[li4 shu1] | |
| 奴隶主 | slave owner | |
| 奴隶制 | slavery | |
| 隶书 | clerical script; official script (Chinese calligraphic style) | |
| 直隶 | Zhili, a province from Ming times until 1928, roughly corresponding to present-day Hebei | |
| 改隶 | (of an entity) to come under the administration of (a different authority) | |
| 隶属 | to be subordinate to; to be under the jurisdiction of | |
| 奴隶 | slave | |
| 隶圉 | servants; underlings |
Sound family
These characters use 隶 as their sound component — compare how they read.
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 隶 sound part | subservient; servant | |
| 逮 | to catch, to seize; to arrive, to reach | |
| 棣 | cherry; Kerria japonica | |
| 埭 | dam; a ramp leading up to a canal |