杀戮 (shā lù) — to massacre, to slaughter

Definition

verb

to massacreto slaughter

Examples

，杀戮。
Zhàn zhēng qī jiān, dí jūn shā lù le xǔ duō wú gū de píng mín.
During the war, the enemy massacred many innocent civilians.
杀戮。
Nà cì zhàn zhēng shā lù le chéng qiān shàng wàn de rén.
That war slaughtered tens of thousands of people.
杀戮。
Tā men cán rěn dì shā lù le suǒ yǒu fú lǔ.
They cruelly slaughtered all the prisoners.

Origin

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

联合liánhéCoordinate

Two parts of equal weight, alike or opposite in meaning, standing side by side.

杀shākill

戮lùkill

杀 (kill) and 戮 (kill) combine to mean slaughter.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 殺; 杀 is its simplified writing.

人人rénperson
又又yòuright hand

The traditional form 殺 comes from an old drawing of a boar impaled in the head, with 人 and 又 added to show a person doing the killing; the simplified 杀 is a later abbreviation.

Open 杀 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

翏戈戮

Meaning part形符xíngfú

戈戈gēdagger axe

Sound part声符shēngfú

翏

翏liù戮lù

The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

戮 combines 翏, which gives the sound, with 戈, a dagger axe, to show the meaning.

Open 戮 →

Appears in