吏 (lì): minor government official or functionary (old)

吏 (lì) is a Chinese character meaning “minor government official or functionary (old).” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 丈 (structural) and 口 (structural). It ranks #2247 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 口 mouth6 strokesFrequency #2247丈 structural口 structural

Definitions

  1. minor government official or functionary (old)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
官吏guān lìbureaucrat
贪官污吏tān guān wū lìgrasping officials, corrupt mandarins (idiom)
从吏cóng lìminor official
吏部lì bùMinistry of Appointments (in imperial China)
吏治lì zhìstyle of governing (of minor official)
奸官污吏jiān guān wū lìtraitor minister and corrupt official (idiom)
故吏gù lì(literary) former subordinate
假吏jiǎ lìacting magistrate
属吏shǔ lì(old) subordinate
赃官污吏zāng guān wū lìgrasping officials, corrupt mandarins (idiom)
狱吏yù lìprison guard
污吏wū lìa corrupt official
蠹吏dù lìcorrupt officials
吏胥lì xūminor official
胥吏xū lìlow-level government official (in former times)
15
Total compounds
20
As first character
80
As last character
0
As middle character

吏 appears in 15 compound words: 20 as the first character, 80 as the last, and 0 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 吏 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

尚shàng
0.54223,292 co-occurrences
侍shì
0.53111,862 co-occurrences
部bù
0.50496,522 co-occurrences
官guān
0.49935,412 co-occurrences
签qiān
0.4847,440 co-occurrences
稽jī
0.4772,130 co-occurrences
郎láng
0.47612,930 co-occurrences
俱jù
0.4727,854 co-occurrences
酷kù
0.4362,376 co-occurrences
贪tān
0.429954 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

贪官污吏tānguān-wūlìHSK 7+

corrupt official

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

孩子们吏渴了，纷纷跑到饮水机前接水。

hái zǐ men lì kě le , fēn fēn pǎo dào yǐn shuǐ jī qián jiē shuǐ .

The children were thirsty and rushed to the water cooler to fill their cups.

Hk01.comFeb 2026

租客新居入伙4个月 业主自曝已破产恐执达吏收楼 律师教点自保

zū kè xīn jū rù huǒ 4 gè yuè yè zhǔ zì pù yǐ pò chǎn kǒng zhí dá lì shōu lóu lǜ shī jiào diǎn zì bǎo

The tenant has been in the new home for 4 months, and the owner revealed that he was bankrupt and feared that the bailiff would take over the building, and the lawyer taught him how to protect himself

Character Family

口 Radical Family — Characters sharing the mouth radical

吧ba吃chī号hào后hòu叫jiào口kǒu吗ma名míng同tóng右yòu

Related Characters

口kǒu叫jiào右yòu号hào吃chī同tóng名míng后hòu吗ma吧ba

Homophones — Characters pronounced lì

礼lǐ李lǐ里lǐ理lǐ力lì历lì立lì丽lí利lì例lì

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 吏 (lì) mean in Chinese?
吏 (lì) primarily means "minor government official or functionary (old)." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2247 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 吏 have?
吏 is written with 6 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 吏?
The radical associated with 吏 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 吏?
吏 is composed of: 丈 (structural), 口 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿻丈口 with a overlay layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 吏?
Common words with 吏 include: 官吏 (guān lì, "bureaucrat"); 贪官污吏 (tān guān wū lì, "grasping officials, corrupt mandarins (idiom)"); 从吏 (cóng lì, "minor official"); 吏部 (lì bù, "Ministry of Appointments (in imperial China)"); 吏治 (lì zhì, "style of governing (of minor official)"). There are over 15 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 吏 (lì)?
Several characters share the pronunciation lì: 礼 (abbr. for 禮記|礼记, Classic of Rites), 李 (plum, surname Li), 里 (lining), 理 (texture), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 吏 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 吏 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

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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.