利比里亚 (Lì bǐ lǐ yà) — Liberia

Definition

noun
Liberia

Examples

  • 利比里亚。
    Lì bǐ lǐ yà Shì fēi zhōu de yí gè guó jiā.
    Liberia is a country in Africa.
  • 利比里亚。
    Wǒ cóng lái méi qù guò Lì bǐ lǐ yà.
    I have never been to Liberia.
  • 利比里亚。
    Lì bǐ lǐ yà De shǒu dū shì méng luó wéi yà.
    The capital of Liberia is Monrovia.

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.

利lì
比bǐ
里lǐ
亚yà

The characters 利比里亚 spell the foreign name Liberia and carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

利 combines 禾 (grain) and 刀 (knife), showing a knife used to cut grain.

Open 利 →

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

  • 匕匕bǐ
  • 匕匕bǐ

比 is two 匕 placed side by side. Chu Wan-li treats both as sound parts, while an old reading takes the side-by-side arrangement as putting things next to each other.

Open 比 →

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 裡; 里 is its simplified writing.

The simplified 里 stands for more than one traditional character. In most words (里, 里面) it is 裡; in others (公里) it is 里 or 裏.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
衤Written in full as衣yīclothes
Sound part声符shēngfú
里
里lǐ裡lǐ
Same sound today

The form 裡 pairs 衤 (clothes) with 里 as a sound component.

Open 里 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 亞; 亚 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 亞 likely shows an overhead view of a construction, perhaps a 亞-shaped tomb. Its later simplified form 亚 is just a shorthand.

Open 亚 →

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