How to Write 殓 (liàn) — Meaning “to lay a body in a coffin”

Imagine the left part 歹 as a coffin or a symbol of death, and the right part 佥 as a person carefully placing the body inside. Picture the two parts working together: 'Death (歹) plus gather (佥) equals placing a body in a coffin.'

The left radical 歹 has four strokes: first a horizontal, then a left-falling stroke, then a horizontal hook, and finally a dot. The right side 佥 has nine strokes, and a common mistake is to confuse it with 金 (jīn, gold) — remember that 佥 has a downward stroke under the top lines, not a dot.

殓 (liàn) means 'to place a body in a coffin,' while 殂 (cú) means 'to die' and 殃 (yāng) means 'disaster' or 'misfortune.' Visually, 殓 has the right component 佥, 殂 has 且 (qiě), and 殃 has 央 (yāng), so focus on the different right-side parts to distinguish them.

殓 appears mainly in formal funeral contexts, such as 入殓 (rù liàn, to place a body into a coffin) and 收殓 (shōu liàn, to encoffin a body). It is not a common daily word, but it is culturally important because encoffining is a key step in traditional Chinese funeral rituals.

Common words containing 殓 include: 入殓 (rù liàn) — to place a body in a coffin; 殓葬 (liàn zàng) — to encoffin and bury; 收殓 (shōu liàn) — to lay a body in a coffin.