累 (lèi): tired, weary, to strain, to wear out, to work hard, to accumulate, to involve or implicate
累 (lèi) is a Chinese character meaning “tired.” Classified as HSK Level 2 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 田 (structural) and 糸 (structural). It ranks #1315 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).
Etymologically derived, 累 simplified form of 纍; growing silk 糸 in the fields 畾; 畾 also provides the pronunciation. Its radical form 纟 (silk) appears in many related characters such as 系 (xì, to connect), 绍 (shào, to continue), 给 (gěi, give).
Definitions
- tired
- weary
- to strain
- to wear out
- to work hard
- to accumulate
- to involve or implicate
Etymology & Origin
ideographicSimplified form of 纍; growing silk 糸 in the fields 畾; 畾 also provides the pronunciation
Decomposition: ⿱田糸 (layout: top-bottom)
Stroke Order
Practice writing 累 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.
Words & Compounds
HSK Vocabulary with 累
Common Compounds
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 连累verb | lián lei | to implicate |
| 拖累verb | tuō lěi | to encumber |
| 累赘verb | léi zhuì | superfluous |
| 累积verb | lěi jī | to accumulate |
| 劳累adjective | láo lèi | tired |
| 累累adjective | léi léi | (literary) (of fruit, achievements etc) clusters of |
| 累垮verb | lèi kuǎ | to collapse |
| 负债累累phrase | fù zhài lěi lěi | deep in debt |
| 受累verb | shòu lěi | to get dragged into |
| 累计verb | lěi jì | to calculate the running total |
| 长年累月phrase | cháng nián lěi yuè | year in, year out (idiom) |
| 日积月累phrase | rì jī yuè lěi | to accumulate over a long period of time |
| 德累斯顿proper-noun | dé léi sī dùn | Dresden, capital of Saxony 薩克森州|萨克森州, Germany |
| 成年累月phrase | chéng nián lěi yuè | year in, year out (idiom) |
| 马累proper-noun | mǎ lèi | Malé, capital of Maldives |
累 appears in 65 compound words: 28 as the first character, 23 as the last, and 49 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 累 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.
Idioms & Chengyu (21)
by the thousands and tens of thousands; untold numbers; innumerable; thousands upon thousands
Showing 12 of 21 idioms containing 累.
Example Sentences
我在字典里查到了累字的详细解释。
wǒ zài zì diǎn lǐ chá dào le lěi zì de xiáng xì xiè shì .
I looked up the detailed explanation of the character "累" in the dictionary.
比特币2月至今累跌逾19% 势创逾三年半最差月度表现
bǐ tè bì 2 yuè zhì jīn lěi diē yú 1 9 shì chuàng yú sān nián bàn zuì chā yuè dù biǎo xiàn
Bitcoin has fallen more than 19% since February, the worst monthly performance in more than three and a half years
MG宣布“欧洲新车累积销量突破百万辆”!电动化布局成核心动能
M G xuān bù ōu zhōu xīn chē lěi jī xiāo liàng tū pò bǎi wàn liàng ! diàn dòng huà bù jú chéng hé xīn dòng néng
MG announced that "the cumulative sales of new cars in Europe exceeded one million units"! Electrification layout has become the core driving force
放年假比上班还累?教你简单4招让身心快速归零
fàng nián jiǎ bǐ shàng bān hái lěi ? jiào nǐ jiǎn dān 4 zhāo ràng shēn xīn kuài sù guī líng
Is annual leave more tiring than going to work? Teach you 4 simple tricks to quickly zero your body and mind
春运过半 中国铁路累计发送旅客2.58亿人次
chūn yùn guò bàn zhōng guó tiě lù lěi jì fā sòng lǚ kè 2 . 5 8 yì rén cì
More than half of the Spring Festival travel China Railway has sent a total of 258 million passengers
启德海湾累售742伙套现逾60亿 短期内推第2期|...
qǐ dé hǎi wān lěi shòu 7 4 2 huǒ tào xiàn yú 6 0 yì duǎn qī nèi tuī dì 2 qī . . .
Kai Tak Bay has sold a total of 742 units and cashed out more than 6 billion yuan, launching the second phase in the short term|...
他看起来有点累，不是吗？
Tā kànqǐlai yǒudiǎn lèi, bùshìma?
He looks a bit tired, doesn't he?
这些天你工作太多了。你不累吗？
Zhèxiē tiān nǐ gōngzuò tài duō le. nǐ bù lèi ma?
You work too hard these days. Aren't you tired?
这下搞得你今天累死了！
Zhè xià gǎo de nǐ jīntiān lèi sǐ le!
You've tired yourself out today!
他说他累了，所以他想早点回家。
Tā shuō tā lèi le, suǒyǐ tā xiǎng zǎodiǎn huíjiā.
He said he was tired, so he would go home early.
Character Family
Frequently Asked Questions
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What characters sound the same as 累 (lèi)?
Is 累 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
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