吝 (lìn): (bound form) stingy

吝 (lìn) is a Chinese character meaning “(bound form) stingy.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 文 (structural) and 口 (structural). It ranks #3005 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. (bound form) stingy

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
吝啬adjectivelìn sèstingy
吝啬鬼nounlìn sè guǐmiser
不吝verbbù lìnnot to stint
吝惜verblìn xīto stint
不吝赐教phrasebù lìn cì jiàoto be so kind as to enlighten me
不吝珠玉bù lìn zhū yù(idiom) (courteous) please give me your frank opinion
悭吝adjectiveqiān lìn(literary) miserly
鄙吝adjectivebǐ lìnvulgar
8
Total compounds
38
As first character
38
As last character
25
As middle character

吝 appears in 8 compound words: 38 as the first character, 38 as the last, and 25 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 吝 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

啬sè
0.857401 co-occurrences
惜xī
0.531238 co-occurrences
鄙bǐ
0.49752 co-occurrences
婪lán
0.48330 co-occurrences
悔huǐ
0.42344 co-occurrences
鬼guǐ
0.412122 co-occurrences
毫háo
0.403136 co-occurrences
贪tān
0.39922 co-occurrences
骄jiāo
0.39010 co-occurrences
狠hěn
0.36710 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

不吝赐教bùlìncìjiàoHSK 7+

to not be stinting with comments or criticism

phrase
不吝珠玉bù lìn zhū yùHSK 7+

(idiom) (courteous) please give me your frank opinion; your criticism will be most valuable

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

请吝下这杯茶,解解渴再继续工作。

qǐng lìn xià zhè bēi chá , jiě jiě kě zài jì xù gōng zuò .

Please help yourself to this cup of tea to quench your thirst before getting back to work.

中国新闻网·体育Sep 2026

谈起年轻队友,汪顺毫不吝惜赞美之词。

tán qǐ nián qīng duì yǒu , wāng shùn háo bù lìn xī zàn měi zhī cí .

When it comes to his younger teammates, Wang Shun is full of praise.

少数派Jun 2026

大概是招待徒步者们的丰富经验也能理解我们的饥寒交迫,她准备起食物毫不吝啬。

dà gài shì zhāo dài tú bù zhě men de fēng fù jīng yàn yě néng lǐ jiě wǒ men de jī hán jiāo pò , tā zhǔn bèi qǐ shí wù háo bù lìn sè .

Perhaps because of her extensive experience hosting hikers, she understood how hungry and cold we were, and she generously prepared food for us.

少数派May 2026

如今,我不再把妈妈简单地归类为“节俭到吝啬”,而是看到了她背后复杂的人生故事。

rú jīn , wǒ bù zài bǎ mā mā jiǎn dān dì guī lèi wéi jié jiǎn dào lìn sè , ér shì kàn dào le tā bèi hòu fù zá de rén shēng gù shì .

Nowadays, I no longer simply categorize my mother as “frugal to the point of being stingy”; instead, I see the complex life story behind her.

Character Family

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 吝 (lìn) mean in Chinese?
吝 (lìn) primarily means "(bound form) stingy." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3005 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 吝 have?
吝 is written with 7 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 吝?
The radical associated with 吝 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 吝?
吝 is composed of: 文 (structural), 口 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱文口 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 吝?
Common words with 吝 include: 吝啬 (lìn sè, "stingy"); 吝啬鬼 (lìn sè guǐ, "miser"); 不吝 (bù lìn, "not to stint"); 吝惜 (lìn xī, "to stint"); 不吝赐教 (bù lìn cì jiào, "to be so kind as to enlighten me"). There are over 8 compound words containing this character.
Is 吝 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 吝 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 吝 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken 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.