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司令 (sī lìng) — commanding officer, commander

Definition

司令 is a noun for the person holding the top command (an army commander), not the act of ordering itself. Unlike 命令 and 指令, which are mainly orders or instructions, 司令 refers to the commanding officer who issues them.

noun
commanding officercommander
Measure word · 位

Examples

  • 司令。
    Nà wèi sī lìng shì jūn duì de zuì gāo lǐng dǎo rén.
    That commander is the highest leader of the army.
  • 司令。
    sī lìng Mìng lìng bù duì lì kè qián jìn.
    The commander ordered the troops to advance immediately.
  • 司令。
    Tā dāng le sān nián de sī lìng.
    He served as commander for three years.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
动宾dòngbīnVerb + object

An action followed by what it acts on, fused into one word.

司sīmanage
令lìngorders

司 means to manage and 令 means orders, naming one who manages orders.

Characters in this word

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

The evidence is inconclusive: one suggestion sees 司 as a mouth giving orders beside a mark of authority, another reads that mark as a hand, and another sees it as a reversed older form.

Open 司 →

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

  • 亼亼jí
  • 卩卩jié

In 令, the upper 亼 is an open mouth and the lower 卩 is a kneeling person, together showing someone giving orders.

Open 令 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 7-9HSK 2.0 Level 6Military & Defense

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