部首radical (禸)部件component (rest of character)书写your drawing
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字源zìyuánEtymology & Structure
字源洞见 zìyuán dòngjiàn · Etymological Insight
离 is the simplified form of 離, and the simplification kept the louder half of the old picture: a creature snared. The traditional graph carried 隹 (zhuī), the short-tailed bird, on its right. The left side, preserved whole in 离, drew a long-tailed bird with a net dropping over its head. The 禸 component at the foot is the catalogued radical, the same track-and-snare element that runs through 禽 (qín, fowl) and 禹. So the glyph began as a hunter's snapshot: feathers, a beak, and the closing mesh.
The Shuōwén Jiězì reads 離 as the name of a particular bird, a kind of oriole or mythical pheasant called 离黄. That bird sense is the literal one, and it has almost vanished from living speech. What survived is a phonetic loan. Speakers of Old Chinese reached for the sound of 离 to write the verb meaning to part, to come away, and that borrowed reading buried the bird.
From to part the meaning spread outward in two directions. One is physical departure, leaving a room or a city, which gives 离开 (líkāi). The other is measured separation, the gap between two fixed points, which gives 距离 (jùlí). Both keep the original tension of the net closing: something that was whole is now held apart.
The form also names a hexagram, 離 (Lí) in the Yìjīng, the trigram of fire and clinging brightness. Japanese borrowed the character as 離 (ri), reading it in 離婚 (rikon, divorce) and 距離 (kyori, distance), the same two senses that anchor the modern Mandarin word stock.
离去líqùLeaving & Departure
离开líkāito leave, to depart from
V 动词 dòngcí
离 (to part) plus 开 (kāi, to open, to move away). The most common verb for leaving a place or a person. It takes a direct object: you leave something.
他早上六点就离开了家。
Tā zǎoshang liù diǎn jiù líkāi le jiā.
He left the house at six in the morning.
请不要离开座位。
Qǐng bùyào líkāi zuòwèi.
Please do not leave your seat.
辨析 biànxī · 离开 vs. 走走 (zǒu) just means to go or to walk off; 离开 names the place or person left behind and is more deliberate.
离 (to part) plus 婚 (hūn, marriage). A separable verb: the two halves can split apart, mirroring the meaning. 离了婚 (líle hūn) means got divorced.
他们去年离婚了。
Tāmen qùnián líhūn le.
They got divorced last year.
她离过一次婚。
Tā líguo yí cì hūn.
She has been divorced once.
离职lízhíto resign, to leave a post
V 动词 dòngcí
离 (to leave) plus 职 (zhí, post, office). The formal verb for quitting a job or stepping down from a position.
他下个月就要离职了。
Tā xià ge yuè jiù yào lízhí le.
He is leaving the company next month.
距离jùlíDistance & Measuring Apart
As a preposition, 离 marks the gap between two points: A 离 B + 远/近/distance, A is far from / near / a measured distance from B. The reference point follows 离, not precedes it.
离lí(prep.) away from, from
prep. 介词 jiècí
Standing alone, 离 is the preposition of separation in space or time. It states how far one thing sits from another.
距 (jù, to be apart) plus 离 (to be apart). A noun for the measured space between two points, and also a verb for being that far apart. Used for physical and emotional distance alike.
两个城市之间的距离是三百公里。
Liǎng ge chéngshì zhījiān de jùlí shì sānbǎi gōnglǐ.
The distance between the two cities is three hundred kilometers.
分 (fēn, to divide) plus 离 (to part). Two reinforcing halves: things that were one are now in pieces. Used for people parting and for substances separated in a process.
离 (to part) plus 别 (bié, to part, to bid farewell). A literary word for the parting of people, weighted with feeling. It carries the ache of long goodbyes.
脱 (tuō, to shed, to slip off) plus 离 (to part). To break free of a tie, a danger, or a group. Stronger than 离开: it implies cutting a connection, not just walking out.
离经叛道lí jīng pàn dàoto depart from the classics and rebel against the Way: heterodox, unorthodoxFrom the Confucian frame: to stray from the canonical texts (经) and turn against orthodox doctrine (道). Modern usage is broad, describing any rebel who breaks with convention, sometimes admiringly.
悲欢离合bēi huān lí hégrief and joy, parting and reunion: the turns of lifeFamous from Sū Shì's mid-autumn ci poem. The four characters name the full cycle of human fortune; 离 (parting) sits against 合 (reunion) as the central rhyme of a life.
形影不离xíng yǐng bù líform and shadow never part: inseparableThe image is a body and its shadow, which never come apart. Said warmly of close friends or a devoted couple who are always together.
支离破碎zhī lí pò suìlimbs apart and shattered to bits: fragmented, in piecesHere 离 means scattered or come apart. Describes something broken into incoherent fragments, a wrecked argument, a shattered country, a disjointed text.
记忆法 jìyìfǎ · Master Retention Image
Picture a bright bird mid-flight, and a net dropping over it from above. The bird strains upward, the mesh pulls it back, and for one frozen instant the two pull in opposite directions. That tension is 离: not a clean break, but a thing held away from where it wants to be. The 禸 track at the foot of the glyph is the snare that catches the feet.
Carry that pulling-apart through the compounds. To leave a house is 离开 (líkāi), the net opening just enough to let the bird out the door. The space the bird cannot cross is 距离 (jùlí), the measured gap. When two birds that flew together are pulled into separate nets, that is 分离 (fēnlí), and when the parting carries grief it becomes 离别 (líbié). Every one of these words is the same caught bird, straining against the distance the snare has opened.
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