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五十万 (wǔ shí mò) — (number) five hundred thousand

Definition

The number 500,000 — 五十 (fifty) × 10,000 (万). Used for large round figures like city populations or sums of money.

numeral
(number) five hundred thousand

Examples

  • 五十万。
    Zhè ge chéng shì yǒu wǔ shí mò rén kǒu.
    This city has five hundred thousand people.
  • 五十万。
    Tā huā le wǔ shí mò kuài qián mǎi fáng zi.
    He spent five hundred thousand yuan to buy a house.
  • 五十万。
    Gōng sī qù nián zhuàn le wǔ shí mò měi yuán.
    The company earned five hundred thousand dollars last year.

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.

五十fifty
五wǔfive十shíten
偏正Modifier + head
万wànten thousand

五 “five” and 十 “ten” make fifty, and 万 “ten thousand” gives fifty ten-thousands.

Characters in this word

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

An older form had a crossed mark between a top bar and a bottom bar. The modern 五 keeps those bars, while the original idea is uncertain.

Open 五 →

An abstract idea shown by a mark or a diagram rather than by a picture of an object.

The early shape 十 was mostly a single vertical stroke, sometimes with a dot, and later gained a horizontal stroke to form a cross. For the number ten, it marked the next digit above one.

Open 十 →

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 →
Appears in
Numbers & Counting

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