Two-character words with lots of strokes

[yersi]

I was fooling around with my dictionary today trying to find the two-character word with the most strokes.

For some reason, bird names seem to be really good for this, for example:

鸕鶿: lu2ci2: cormorant, 45 strokes

鸚鵡: ying1wu3: parrot, 45 strokes

鷦鷯: jiao1liao2: wren, 47 strokes

Diseases are good as well:

鬱鬱: yu4yu4: depression, 48 strokes

And then there's random oddities like this:

鹽罐: yan2guan4: saltcellar, 46 strokes

The words seem to plateau at around 45-48, are there any words with a higher stroke count than that?

[monto]

籲

The character with the most strokes (32) I could find. It is traditional one for "吁".

[Lu]

According to the online dictionary, the character with the most strokes that you can combine with 籲 is 請, making

籲請 yu4qing3 to request 32+14=46 strokes.

[monto]

籲請 yu4qing3 to request 32+14=46 strokes.

Why not 籲籲 = 自得之貌。makes 32*2 = 64 strokes.

[tooironic]

I thought was the one Chinese character with the most amount of strokes? Or is it not in use anymore?

Made up of 57 strokes, the Chinese character "biáng" is one of the most complex Chinese characters in contemporary usage, although the character is not found in modern dictionaries or even in the Kangxi dictionary. Due to the fact that the Chinese character for "biáng" cannot be entered into computers, phonetic substitutes like 棒棒麵 bàng bàng miàn or 梆梆麵 bāng bāng miàn are often used.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi%C3%A1ng

Anyway, 警察 has always annoyed me. For an emergency service, they sure do make it really complex to read and write!

[Sam Addington]

But what does it mean?

It looks like the mouth of hell!

[gougou]

For an emergency service, they sure do make it really complex to read and write!

Where you planning to inform them by letter when you get robbed?

[here2learn]

But what does it mean?

It looks like the mouth of hell!

Haha... that's funny, the mouth of hell.... I wondered what it meant myself, and I particularly wondered where to BEGIN writing it! Luckily, both my questions were answered with that wickipedia link above. It's a kind of noodle dish, and there's a little poem to help you remember how to write it:

from wickipedia again (we nearly have the whole page on here now, yikes)...

There are a number of ditties familiar to Shaanxi residents used as mnemonics to aid recall of how the character is written.

One version runs as follows:

一點上了天 A dot rises up to heaven,

黃河兩道彎 and the yellow river has two bends.

八字大張口 The character "eight" [八] opens its mouth,

言字往進走 and the character "speak" [言] walks in.

你一扭我一扭 You make a twist, I make a twist,

你一長我一長 you grow, I grow,

當中加個馬大王 and we add a horse king in between.

心字底 The character "heart" [心] forms the base,

月字旁 the character "moon" [月] stands at the side,

留个钓搭挂麻糖 a hook at the right to hang sesame candies,

坐着車車逛咸陽 and we ride a carriage to tour the streets of Xianyang.

In simplified characters:

一点上了天，黄河两道弯，八字大张口，言字往进走，你一扭我一扭，你一长我一长，当中加个马大王，心字底月字旁，留个钓搭挂麻糖，坐着车车逛咸阳。

Though... I think remembering that "ditty" is pretty difficult itself. It might be a fun little trivial thing to know though. Something silly yet impressive to show off during a lull in conversation...

[yersi]

I memorized that character years ago, still sticks. It is a great icebreaker when talking with Chinese people.

[monto]

Aha! that's great!

This is called "一着鲜,吃遍天" in Chinese. literally it means "If you have a skill particular, you may go anywhere under the sky".

[trien27]

靐靐 - the sound of thunder [39 *2 = 78 strokes for both characters]

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chinese.htm