令

lìng
#378 most
frequent character
to order, to command, an order

Character breakdown

Source: Make Me a Hanzi.

令 is a picture of a mouth 亽 giving an order to a kneeling person 龴. That gave the first meaning, 'command'. From there it grew to 'cause' and 'word, phrase'.

Drawn as: mouth giving command; kneeling person

令 as a component in other characters

meaning1 character
picture1 character

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