Chinese Character Wiki
了

le, liǎo, liào

finish

Original meaning: 

armless child

Pictograph of a young child, similar to 子, but without arms. Compare to 孑 (child only with right arm) and 孓 (child only with left arm). The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
子 iconic,remnant component

子  Iconic Remnant component

zi, zǐ

  

child

A child (子) without arms.

Evolution

了 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
了 Seal script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Seal script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
了 Clerical script Jin dynasty (266-420 AD)

Clerical script

Jin dynasty (266-420 AD)
了 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

了  

le

to finish; particle of completed action; (completed action marker); (modal particle indicating change of state, situation now); (modal particle intensifying preceding clause)

了  

liǎo

to achieve; variant of 瞭|了[liǎo]; to understand clearly

了 (瞭) 

liǎo

(of eyes) bright; clear-sighted

了 (瞭) 

liào

unofficial variant of 瞭[liào]

Most common words with 了
Freq.
Word
Meaning

了

(completed action marker)

为了

in order to

了解

to understand

到了

at last

除了

besides

Component uses

Sound component in 3 characters (1 verified)

疗 辽 钌

Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 100.0000% of movies

5th most common character in movies

5th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

2

Unicode

U+4E86

Shuowen

“了，尦也。从子無臂，象形。”


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons License