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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

冷

lěng
cold; cool
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 冫
  • 7 strokes

Etymology graph

  • inherited
  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *raːŋʔ, *reːŋ, *reːŋʔ): semantic 冫 (“ice”) + phonetic 令 (OC *ren, *reŋ, *reŋs, *reːŋ, *reːŋs) – cold as ice.

A vocalic variant of 涼 (OC *ɡ·raŋ, “chilly; cold”) (Schuessler, 2007).

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French laine (“wool”).

Etymology 3

Borrowed from Teochew 儂 /侬 (nang⁵, “person”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese仌 “ice”
  • soundChinese令 “to order; to command”
    • ideaChinese亼 “mouth”
      • ideaChinese入 “to enter; to go into”
      • ideaChinese一 “one”
    • ideaChinese卩 “kneeling person”
  • borrowedFrenchlaine “wool”
  • borrowedTeochew儂 “person”

Words built on it: 寒冷

Meanings

character
  1. cold; cool
  2. to cool; to cool down; to become cold
  3. cold; desolate; quiet
  4. cold; indifferent
  5. to dishearten
  6. idle

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

冷：寒也。从仌令聲。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 感覺溫度低。與「熱」相對。 例：寒流來了，今天好冷！　◎
  2. 淡漠、不熱烈。 例：冷淡、冷漠、冷場
  3. 寂靜、寂寞。 例：冷冷清清
  4. 鄙視、譏刺。 例：冷言冷語
  5. 不受歡迎的、無人過問的。 例：冷門、冷貨
  6. 突然。 例：冷槍、冷不防

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 冷 was written 字形演變

  1. 冷 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 冷 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 冷