纜 meaning and stroke order
Cable, hawser, heavy-duty rope
How to write 纜, stroke by stroke
27 strokes in order. Each box adds the next stroke in red. Write top to bottom and left to right, and finish enclosing strokes last.
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Meaning of 纜
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- cable
- hawser
- to moor
How 纜 is built
Phono-semantic (sound + meaning) character. Thread.
糹 gives the meaning and 覽 hints at the sound.
Radical: 糹 (silk), shared by 126 characters on this site.
How to remember 纜
纜 combines 糹 (silk, thread) with 覽 (lǎn, to look over), which gives the sound. Picture threads twisted together so thick and long that you have to look over the whole length, like a ship's heavy rope.
纜 is rarely used alone in modern speech. It appears mostly in compounds like 电缆 (diànlǎn) electric cable, 光缆 (guānglǎn) optical cable, and 缆车 (lǎnchē) cable car. Example: 我们坐缆车上山。(Wǒmen zuò lǎnchē shàng shān.) We took the cable car up the mountain.
Common mistake: Learners sometimes write the right side as 览 or 監 alone, or confuse 纜 with 攬 (lǎn, to embrace or take on), which has the hand radical 扌 instead of thread 糹. Use 糹 when the meaning is a rope or cable.
Common words with 纜
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
Questions about 纜
How many strokes are in 纜?
纜 is written with 27 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 纜 mean?
纜 (lǎn) means cable, hawser, heavy-duty rope. A common word with it is 缆车 (lǎnchē), meaning "cable car".
How do you pronounce 纜?
纜 is pronounced lǎn, in the third tone (dipping).
What is the radical of 纜?
The radical of 纜 is 糹, which carries the idea of "silk". Dictionaries list 纜 under this radical.
What is the simplified form of 纜?
纜 is a traditional character. Its simplified form is 缆, used in mainland China and Singapore.
What is the simplified form of 纜 that I will see in mainland China?
In simplified Chinese it is written 缆, with 纟 on the left and 览 on the right. All the common words, such as 电缆 and 缆车, use this form on the mainland.
Can 纜 be used as a verb?
Yes, in older or literary Chinese it can mean to moor a boat with a rope. In everyday modern Chinese, people more often say 系缆 (xì lǎn) or 停船 (tíng chuán) for mooring.