九千万 (jiǔ qiān mò) — ninety million

Definition

Large cardinal number: 90,000,000 (nine ten-thousands-of-ten-thousands). Used like a regular numeral; pair it with a measure word or noun (∼人, ∼美元).

numeral
ninety million

Examples

  • 九千万。
    Zhōng guó yǒu jiǔ qiān mò rén.
    China has ninety million people.
  • 九千万。
    Zhè ge xiàng mù tóu zī le jiǔ qiān mò měi yuán.
    This project invested ninety million US dollars.
  • 九千万。
    Měi nián yǒu jiǔ qiān mò dūn huò wù cóng zhè lǐ yùn chū.
    Every year, ninety million tons of goods are shipped from here.

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.

九千nine thousand
九jiǔnine千qiānthousand
偏正Modifier + head
万wànten thousand

九千 and 万 combine to mean ninety million.

Characters in this word

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

The shape comes from a stylized hand bent at the wrist, with the lower-right hook showing the bend. Later, it was taken to show a tightened fist bumping up to ten, giving the number nine.

Open 九 →

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

Meaning part形符xíngfú
一一yīone, signifying a number
Sound part声符shēngfú
人
人rén千qiān
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

千 pairs 人, whose sound was similar, with 一, a number stroke; the extra line was explained as extension, and a thousand is a number reached by extending counting.

Open 千 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 萬; 万 is its simplified writing.

For 万, the form 萬 was originally a picture of a scorpion, later borrowed for its sound to write 'ten thousand'; the scorpion picture is unrelated to that number.

Open 万 →

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