不停 (bù tíng) — to not stop; nonstop | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

verb

to not stopnonstop

Examples

不停，。
Tā bù tíng dì gōng zuò, cóng bù xiū xi.
He works nonstop, never resting.
不停。
Yǔ bù tíng dì xià le yì zhěng tiān.
It rained nonstop all day long.
不停，。
Zhè ge wèn tí bù tíng dì chū xiàn, ràng rén hěn fán.
This problem keeps appearing incessantly, which is very annoying.

Origin

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

不 means not and 停 means stop, so it expresses never stopping.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The picture in 不 originally showed a flower’s calyx; the “no” sense came later from a related character, not from this picture.

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

亻亭停

Meaning part形符xíngfú

亻Written in full as人rén

Sound part声符shēngfú

亭

亭tíng停tíng

Same sound today

The left side 亻 is a person, and the right side 亭 gives the sound tíng; this forms 停.

Grammar

Full explanation →

Appears in

Frequency & Duration

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