HSK 6 · Adjectives

吝啬 lìnsè “stingy” in Chinese

Traditional 吝嗇

What 吝啬 means

  1. stingy
  2. miserly
  3. mean

How to say 吝啬

  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale吝lìn4th tone, falling
  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale啬sè4th tone, falling

吝啬 in a sentence

  1. 他非常吝啬。

    Tā fēicháng lìnsè.

    He’s very stingy.

    Sentence #887899 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 你这个吝啬的老头。

    Nǐ zhè ge lìnsè de lǎotóu.

    You stingy old man!

    Sentence #5554534 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 吝啬 is built

Each colour is one part of the character. Parts repeat across thousands of characters, so learning them makes new words easier. See all 214 in our radicals chart.

The character 吝 (lìn) with each of its parts in a different colour
吝lìnstingy
  • 文script · wén
  • 口mouth · kǒu
The character 啬 (sè) with each of its parts in a different colour
啬sèstingy
  • 土earth · tǔ
  • 丷eight form of 八 · bā
  • 回to return · huí

How to write 吝啬

吝 7 strokes · 啬 11 strokes

Watch the order, then press Try writing it and draw each stroke in the grid. Each stroke is checked as you go.

吝啬 (lìnsè) stroke order chart: each stroke of the characters in the order you write them
Stroke order chart for 吝啬 (lìnsè). Red marks the next stroke, so you can copy it onto paper one step at a time.

Words related to 吝啬

More words: Adjectives

利害lìhai · terrible伶俐línglì · clever灵敏língmǐn · sensitive零星língxīng · scattered立体lìtǐ · three-dimensional理直气壮lǐzhíqìzhuàng · bold and confident (being in the right)隆重lóngzhòng · grand啰唆luōsuo · long-winded

FAQs

吝啬 (lìnsè) means “stingy” or “miserly”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it lìnsè: lìn with a 4th tone, then sè with a 4th tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
In Traditional characters, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, 吝啬 is written 吝嗇. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type linse with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 吝啬 from the suggestions. Typing linse into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
吝啬 is an HSK 6 word in the HSK 2.0 word lists.

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Sources: meaning and pinyin checked by a native Mandarin teacher against the official HSK lists. Extra meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.