Chinese Character Wiki
勞

láo

labor

Depicts the hard work of sewing clothes (衣) with only firelight (炏). Later the 力 (strength, power) component was added.

Components
炏 iconic component

炏  Iconic component

yán

  

flame

衣 iconic,remnant component

衣  Iconic Remnant component

yī, yì

  

clothes

力 meaning component

力  Meaning component

lì

  

power

Evolution

勞 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
勞 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
勞 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
勞 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
勞 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

劳 (勞) 

láo

labor, toil, do manual work; to toil; labor; laborer; to put sb to trouble (of doing sth); meritorious deed; to console (Taiwan pr. [lào] for this sense)

Most common words with 勞
Freq.
Word
Meaning

劳动

work

效劳

to work for

劳

to toil

劳动力

labor force

疲劳

fatigue

Component uses

Sound component in 5 characters (0 verified)

撈 嘮 澇 嶗 癆

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[r]ˤaw

law

láo

toil

*[r]ˤaw-s

lawH

lào

to reward for toil


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 32.8047% of movies

1034th most common character in movies

679th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

12

Simplified

劳

Unicode

U+52DE

Shuowen

“勞，劇也。从力，熒省。熒火燒冂，用力者勞。，古文勞从悉。”


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