了
Meanings
CC-CEDICT
- 1.(completed action marker)
- 2.(modal particle indicating change of state, situation now)
- 3.(modal particle intensifying preceding clause)
- 1.to finish
- 2.(used with 得[dé] or 不[bù] after a verb to express (im)possibility, as in 忘不了[wàng bu liǎo] "cannot forget")
- 3.(literary) (usually followed by a negative such as 无[wú] or 不[bù]) completely (not); entirely (not); (not) in the least
- 4.to understand clearly (variant of 了[liǎo])
- 1.(of eyes) bright
- 2.clear-sighted
- 3.to understand clearly
- 1.unofficial variant of 瞭[liào]
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Wiktionary
- 1.Used after a verb to indicate perfective aspect (action completion).
- 2.Used at the end of a sentence to indicate a change of state.
- 3.Used at the end of a sentence to inform the beginning of an action.
- 4.Used at the end of a sentence to demand.
- 5.Used to indicate the present tense.
- 6.to be finished; to be completed
- 7.to end; to finish
- 8.to understand; to comprehend
- 9.clear; plain; understandable
- 10.bright; intelligent; smart
- 11.completely; utterly; entirely
- 12.Used with 不 (bù) or 得 (de) after verbs to express possibility.
- 13.to use up; to lose; to waste; to squander
- 14.Original form of 燎 (liáo, “ancient offering involving burning wood”).
- 15.a surname
- 16.used in 潦倒 (liáodǎo) and 潦草 (liáocǎo)
- 17.messy; illegible
- 18.to scribble
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Etymology
According to the Shuowen Jiezi, a pictogram (象形) of a baby without arms. Compare with 子, where the arms are visible. The Shuowen defines 了 as "the crossing of lower legs". In the Shuowen Jiezi Zhu, a commentary to the Shuowen Jiezi, it is said that the pictogram instead depicts entangled legs (了戾). Its relation with the meaning "to finish" is likely via sound loan, but an argument can be made about "entangled legs" → "tie"→ "finish". Unrelated to 亨. Verb “to finish; to be completed” > perfective aspect particle (了₁, weakened form) > change-of-state modal particle (了₂). It eventually replaced classical 矣 (OC *ɢlɯʔ). Two kinds of particle uses of 了 can be distinguished: the perfective aspect particle after verbs (conventionally written as 了₁) and the sentence-final modal particle (了₂). It is generally accepted (Wu, 1998) that these two uses of 了 are derived from the concrete verb “to finish”. The grammaticalisation of this verb had become common in the Tang Dynasty, initially in the form of ‹verb + (object) + perfective 了› to indicate the completion of an action. The perfective particle subsequently underwent further grammaticalisation to become the sentence-final change-of-state modal particle; Liu (1985) has demonstrated that this last step may have involved the coalescence of sentence-final 了 with 也 in certain Mandarin dialects, as the pronunciations of 了₁ and 了₂ are distinct in these dialects, with 了₂ rhyming with 也. Contrary to the suggestion in Schuessler (2007), this word is not related to Vietnamese rồi, due to the non-existent correspondence between any given phonemes. Thai แล้ว (lɛ́ɛo, “to be finished; already; then, afterwards”), Lao ແລ້ວ (lǣu, “to finish; to be completed; perfective particle”) are loans from Chinese.
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Stroke order
Components
Components from cjk-decomp · MIT
Example sentences
對了！
That's right!
春天了
It's spring.
睏了。
I'm sleepy.
我濕了。
I'm wet.
懂了吗？
Got it?
他跑了。
He ran.
Sentences from Tatoeba · CC-BY 2.0 FR
More examples & usage (AI)
Synonyms
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Derived terms
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA