拎 (līn): to lift up, to carry in one's hand, Taiwan pr.

拎 (līn) is a Chinese character meaning “to lift up.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 令 (phonetic). It ranks #2897 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 拎 hand. Its radical form 扌 (hand) appears in many related characters such as 手 (shǒu, hand), 打 (dǎ, hit, make), 找 (zhǎo, to look for).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 扌 hand8 strokesFrequency #2897扌 semantic令 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to lift up
  2. to carry in one's hand
  3. Taiwan pr.

Etymology & Origin

拎

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌令 (layout: left-right)

Components:扌semantic令phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
拎包党līn bāo dǎng(coll.) purse snatcher
拎起līn qǐto pick up (from the ground with one's hands)
拎包līn bāohandbag or shopping bag (dialect)
3
Total compounds
100
As first character
0
As last character
0
As middle character

拎 appears in 3 compound words: 100 as the first character, 0 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 拎 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

碌lù
0.50342 co-occurrences
树shù
0.41296 co-occurrences
袋dài
0.40448 co-occurrences
着zhe
0.395192 co-occurrences
藤téng
0.378102 co-occurrences
箱xiāng
0.37042 co-occurrences
著zhù
0.355228 co-occurrences
皮pí
0.32148 co-occurrences
手shǒu
0.294126 co-occurrences
起qǐ
0.27696 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

拎照镜子，整理一下自己的仪容。

līn zhào jìng zǐ , zhěng lǐ yī xià zì jǐ de yí róng .

Check your appearance in the mirror and tidy yourself up.

StheadlineMar 2026

...陷低潮 办生前追思会克服死亡恐惧“将死亡拎出来讲!” 将赴深圳求医寻生机

. . . xiàn dī cháo bàn shēng qián zhuī sī huì kè fú sǐ wáng kǒng jù jiāng sǐ wáng līn chū lái jiǎng ! jiāng fù shēn 圳 qiú yī xún shēng jī

... Fall into a low ebb, hold a memorial service before death, overcome the fear of death, "Take death out and talk!" Will go to Shenzhen to seek medical treatment and find a chance to survive

Character Family

扌 Radical Family — Characters sharing the hand radical

挨āi按àn扒bā拔bá把bǎ摆bǎi扳bān搬bān扮bàn拌bàn

Related Characters

手shǒu打dǎ找zhǎo拿ná才cái护hù报bào拉lā挺tǐng换huàn

Homophones — Characters pronounced līn

邻lín林lín

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 拎 (līn) mean in Chinese?
拎 (līn) primarily means "to lift up." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2897 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 拎 and 下?
拎 (līn) and 下 (xià) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 拎 (up) vs 下 (down).
How many strokes does 拎 have?
拎 is written with 8 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 拎?
The radical associated with 拎 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 拎?
拎 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 令 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌令 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 拎?
Common words with 拎 include: 拎包党 (līn bāo dǎng, "(coll.) purse snatcher"); 拎起 (līn qǐ, "to pick up (from the ground with one's hands)"); 拎包 (līn bāo, "handbag or shopping bag (dialect)"). There are over 3 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 拎 (līn)?
Several characters share the pronunciation līn: 邻 (neighbor), 林 (forest, woods). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 拎 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 拎 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 拎 with real-time feedback

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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.