How to Write 魉 (liǎng) — Meaning “Sprite”

Imagine a ghost (鬼) wearing a small hat shaped like the character 尔 on its head — this little ghost is a playful sprite. The sound "liǎng" can remind you of "long" as in a long, thin ghost. Visualize the left side as the ghost's big body and the right side as its tiny hat.

Pay attention to the stroke order of the left radical 鬼: first write the top left stroke, then the vertical line, then the horizontal, and finally the hook and the rest. The right part 尔 has five strokes, ending with a small dot — make it smaller than the ghost radical. A common mistake is making the right side too large, which unbalances the character.

The main visual difference is the right part: 魉 has 尔 (simplified), 魃 has 犮 (bá), and 魄 has 白 (bái). Meaning-wise, 魉 refers to a sprite or demon, 魃 is a specific drought demon, and 魄 means soul or spirit. In usage, 魉 almost always appears in the idiom 魑魅魍魉, while 魄 is common in words like 魂魄 (soul).

魉 is very rare alone and is primarily found in the four-character idiom 魑魅魍魉 (chī mèi wǎng liǎng), which describes all sorts of evil spirits or monsters. In modern writing, this idiom is used metaphorically to refer to wicked or harmful people. The character is not in the HSK vocabulary, so you will mostly encounter it in literature, myths, or classical texts.

Common words containing 魉 include: 魑魅魍魉 (chī mèi wǎng liǎng) — all sorts of demons and monsters; 魍魉 (wǎng liǎng) — Demons and monsters; 魉影 (liǎng yǐng) — Shadow of a sprite.