掠 (lüè): to take over by force, to rob, to plunder

掠 (lüè) is a Chinese character meaning “to take over by force.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 京 (phonetic). It ranks #1849 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 掠 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 hand11 strokesFrequency #1849扌 semantic京 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to take over by force
  2. to rob
  3. to plunder

Etymology & Origin

掠

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌京 (layout: left-right)

Components:扌semantic京phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
掠夺lüè duóto plunder
掠过lüè guòto flit across
抢掠qiǎng lüèto loot
劫掠jié lüèto loot
掳掠lǔ lüèto plunder
浮光掠影fú guāng lüè yǐngflickering light and passing shadows (idiom)
掠美lüè měito claim credit due to others
掠夺者lüè duó zhěrobber
掠取lüè qǔto plunder
前掠翼qián lüè yìswept-forward wing (on jet fighter)
飞掠fēi lüèto fly past
掠食lüè shíto prey on
掠卖lüè màito press-gang sb and sell into slavery
私掠sī lüèto privateer
擦掠cā lüèto brush against
17
Total compounds
41
As first character
47
As last character
12
As middle character

掠 appears in 17 compound words: 41 as the first character, 47 as the last, and 12 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 掠 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

劫jié
0.66316,380 co-occurrences
夺duó
0.60512,684 co-occurrences
抢qiǎng
0.5282,940 co-occurrences
肆sì
0.5142,220 co-occurrences
食shí
0.49414,310 co-occurrences
焚fén
0.4621,536 co-occurrences
烧shāo
0.4131,122 co-occurrences
翼yì
0.4022,358 co-occurrences
抄chāo
0.401792 co-occurrences
者zhě
0.39013,548 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

浮光掠影fúguānglüèyǐngHSK 7+

cursory impression; superficial observation

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

掠照镜子，整理一下自己的仪容。

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

Glance in the mirror and tidy up your appearance.

BastillepostMar 2026

纳许维尔掠夺者队3比1挫西雅图海怪队 费斯伯格一球...

nà xǔ wéi ěr lüè duó zhě duì 3 bǐ 1 cuò xī yǎ tú hǎi guài duì fèi sī bó gé yī qiú . . .

The Nashville Predators defeated the Seattle Kraken 3-1; Feisberg scored one goal...

Tatoeba

乌云正掠过这座城市。

Wūyún zhèng lüèguò zhè zuò chéngshì.

Black clouds were passing above the city.

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 lüè

略lüè

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 掠 (lüè) mean in Chinese?
掠 (lüè) primarily means "to take over by force." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1849 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 掠 and 谅?
掠 (lüè) and 谅 (liàng) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 扌 vs 讠 (same 京 component).
How many strokes does 掠 have?
掠 is written with 11 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 掠?
The radical associated with 掠 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 掠?
掠 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 京 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌京 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 掠?
Common words with 掠 include: 掠夺 (lüè duó, "to plunder"); 掠过 (lüè guò, "to flit across"); 抢掠 (qiǎng lüè, "to loot"); 劫掠 (jié lüè, "to loot"); 掳掠 (lǔ lüè, "to plunder"). There are over 17 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 掠 (lüè)?
Several characters share the pronunciation lüè: 略 (strategy, slightly). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 掠 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 掠 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.