丹佛 (Dān fó) — Denver, Colorado | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

noun

DenverColorado

Examples

丹佛。
Qù nián xià tiān wǒ qù le Dān fó lǚ yóu.
I went to Denver for travel last summer.
丹佛。
Dān fó Shì měi guó kē luó lā duō zhōu de shǒu fǔ.
Denver is the capital of Colorado, USA.
丹佛。
Zài Dān fó kě yǐ kàn dào luò jī shān mài de měi lì fēng jǐng.
In Denver you can see the beautiful scenery of the Rocky Mountains.

Origin

Single-morpheme word

构词法gòucífǎ

音译yīnyìTransliteration

The characters spell the sound of a foreign word; their individual meanings play no part.

The characters “丹” and “佛” carry no meaning here; they spell the foreign name Denver.

Sound-only characters

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

The shape 丹 shows a well or mine with red cinnabar inside.

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

亻弗佛

Meaning part形符xíngfú

亻Written in full as人rénperson

Sound part声符shēngfú

弗

弗fú佛Fó

The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

佛 is made from 亻, a person, and 弗, which gives the sound.

Appears in

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