匈奴 (Xiōng nú) — Xiongnu (ancient nomadic people)

Definition

noun

Xiongnu (ancient nomadic people)

匈奴。
Xiōng nú Shì gǔ dài zhōng guó běi fāng de yí gè qiáng dà yóu mù mín zú.
The Xiongnu were a powerful nomadic people in ancient northern China.
匈奴。
Hàn cháo yǔ Xiōng nú zhī jiān jìn xíng le cháng qī de zhàn zhēng.
The Han dynasty waged long-term wars with the Xiongnu.
匈奴。
Xiōng nú De wén huà duì hòu lái de yóu mù mín zú chǎn shēng le shēn yuǎn yǐng xiǎng.
The culture of the Xiongnu had a profound influence on later nomadic peoples.

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.

匈xiōng

The characters 匈 and 奴 carry no meaning of their own here; together they spell the foreign name of the Xiongnu people.

Sound-only characters

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

勹凶匈

Meaning part形符xíngfú

勹勹bāo

Sound part声符shēngfú

凶

Same sound today

匈 pairs 勹, a part related to the meaning, with 凶, which gives the sound xiōng.

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

女又奴

奴 shows 又 (a hand) and 女 (a woman): a hand capturing and ordering a woman around.

Appears in