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公费 (gōng fèi) — at public expense (public funding, government-sponsored)

Definition

公费 means 'at public expense' — funding provided by an institution or state. 公款, by contrast, is the public MONEY itself (the funds as a resource you must manage responsibly).

noun
at public expense (public funding, government-sponsored)

Examples

  • 公费。
    Gōng sī pài tā qù měi guó gōng fèi liú xué.
    The company sent him to the United States for government-funded study.
  • 公费。
    Zhè cì gōng fèi lǚ yóu yóu dān wèi zǔ zhī.
    This publicly funded trip is organized by the company.
  • 公费。
    Guó jiā wèi pín kùn xué shēng tí gōng gōng fèi jiào yù.
    The state provides publicly funded education for disadvantaged students.

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.

公gōngpublic
费fèiexpense

公 means public and 费 means expense, so the word refers to costs borne publicly.

Characters in this word

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

One theory sees 公 as a picture of a wide-mouthed, round-bottomed jar.

Open 公 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 費; 费 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
貝貝bèicowry
Sound part声符shēngfú
弗
弗fú費fèi
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The traditional form 費 has 貝, a cowry shell, and 弗, which gives a sound; the simplified 费 is a shorthand, and its parts are not the original pieces.

Open 费 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 7-9Government & PoliticsMoney & Currency

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