(lán): basket (receptacle), basket (in basketball)

(lán) is a Chinese character meaning “basket (receptacle).” Classified as HSK Level 2 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #2287 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, bamboo. Its radical form (bamboo) appears in many related characters such as (xiào, to laugh), (, (prefix indicating ordinal number, as in 第六[di4 liu4] "sixth")), (děng, to wait for).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. basket (receptacle)
  2. basket (in basketball)

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticbamboo

Decomposition: ⿱⺮监 (layout: top-bottom)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

Practice writing with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
nounlán qiúbasketball2

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
lán zibasket
tóu lánto shoot for the basket (basketball)
yáo láncradle (for a baby)
lán qiú duìbasketball team
kòu lánslam dunk
lán qiú chǎngbasketball court
yáo lán qǔlullaby
lán kuāngbasket
lán bǎnbackboard
lán bǎn qiúrebound (basketball)
zhú lánwicker basket
nǚ lánwomen's basketball
nán lánmen's basketball
nán zǐ lán qiúmen's basketball
jiǎn dào lán lǐ jiù shì càiall is grist that comes to the mill (idiom)
29
Total compounds
31
As first character
41
As last character
28
As middle character

appears in 29 compound words: 31 as the first character, 41 as the last, and 28 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

qiú
0.59869,799 co-occurrences
yáo
0.5975,159 co-occurrences
kuāng
0.543486 co-occurrences
bǎn
0.53811,880 co-occurrences
yùn
0.44810,776 co-occurrences
0.4463,648 co-occurrences
nán
0.44512,000 co-occurrences
jǐn
0.4441,968 co-occurrences
chǔ
0.4357,290 co-occurrences
duì
0.4329,872 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

zhúlándǎshuǐHSK 5+

wild-goose chase; wasted effort

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

字在不同的语境中有不同的用法。

lán zì zài bù tóng de yǔ jìng zhōng yǒu bù tóng de yòng fǎ .

The character "篮" has different usages in different contexts.

Nownews今日新聞Mar 2026

世界杯男/海峡大战先发出炉!雷蒙恩继续先发 力拼...

shì jiè bēi nán lán hǎi xiá dà zhàn xiān fā chū lú ! léi méng ēn jì xù xiān fā lì pīn . . .

World Cup men's basketball team/Straits war first! Raymond continues to take the lead...

東森新聞Feb 2026

男公园练投“球滚路中”害雷残 索国赔吞败

nán gōng yuán liàn tóu lán qiú gǔn lù zhōng hài léi cán suǒ guó péi tūn bài

Men's park practice shooting "ball rolling in the road" harms thunder and damages the country to compensate for defeat

Nownews今日新聞Feb 2026

世界杯男/5738人见证!中华队击溃韩国 球评:...

shì jiè bēi nán lán 5 7 3 8 rén jiàn zhèng ! zhōng huá duì jī kuì hán guó qiú píng : . . .

World Cup men's basketball team/5738 people witnessed! The Chinese team defeated South Korea Commentary:...

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

NBA/灌大赛太难看!太阳老板开百万美元奖金想让球...

N B A guàn lán dà sài tài nán kàn ! tài yáng lǎo bǎn kāi bǎi wàn měi yuán jiǎng jīn xiǎng ràng qiú . . .

NBA/Slam Dunk Contest is too ugly! The Suns boss opened a million dollar prize and wanted to let the ball...

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

世界杯男/游艾喆遭割舍 中华男抗韩12人名单出...

shì jiè bēi nán lán yóu ài 喆 zāo gē shě zhōng huá nán lán kàng hán 1 2 rén míng dān chū . . .

World Cup Men's Basketball Team/You Aizhe was cut off The list of 12 people of the Chinese men's basketball team to resist South Korea was released...

Tatoeba

您为什么喜欢打球?

Nín wèishénme xǐhuan dǎ lánqiú?

Why do you like playing basketball?

Tatoeba

宝宝在摇里入睡了。

Bǎobǎo zài yáolán lǐ rùshuì le.

The baby fell asleep in the cradle.

Tatoeba

婴儿在摇中睡觉。

Yīng'ér zài yáolán zhōng shuìjiào.

The baby was sleeping in the cradle.

Tatoeba

子里装满了草莓。

Lánzi lǐ zhuāngmǎn le cǎoméi.

The basket was full of strawberries.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced lán

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 篮 (lán) mean in Chinese?
篮 (lán) primarily means "basket (receptacle)." It is classified as HSK Level 2, making it a beginner-level character. It ranks #2287 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 篮 and 尴?
篮 (lán) and 尴 (gān) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 竹 vs 尢 (same 监 component).
How many strokes does 篮 have?
篮 is written with 16 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 篮?
The radical associated with 篮 is 竹 (bamboo). This radical appears in many characters related to bamboo.
What are the components of 篮?
篮 is composed of: ⺮ (semantic), 监 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱⺮监 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 篮?
Common words with 篮 include: 篮球 (lán qiú, "basketball"); 篮子 (lán zi, "basket"); 投篮 (tóu lán, "to shoot for the basket (basketball)"); 摇篮 (yáo lán, "cradle (for a baby)"); 篮球队 (lán qiú duì, "basketball team"). There are over 29 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 篮 (lán)?
Several characters share the pronunciation lán: 蓝 (blue), 兰 (abbr. for Lanzhou 蘭州|兰州, Gansu), 拦 (to block sb's path), 栏 (fence), and 3 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 篮 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 篮 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.