十五秒 (shí wǔ miǎo) — fifteen seconds

Definition

noun
fifteen seconds

Examples

  • 十五秒。
    Wǒ men zhǐ yǒu shí wǔ miǎo de shí jiān le.
    We only have fifteen seconds left.
  • 十五秒，。
    Bǐ sài hái shèng shí wǔ miǎo, qǐng dà jiā ān jìng.
    There are fifteen seconds left in the game; please be quiet.
  • 十五秒。
    Tā pǎo yì bǎi mǐ yòng le shí wǔ miǎo.
    He ran 100 meters in fifteen seconds.

Origin

Characters in this word

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.

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 →

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
禾禾hécereal; grain
Sound part声符shēngfú
少
少shǎo秒miǎo
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The form 秒 pairs 禾, a cereal or grain plant, with 少 giving the sound.

Open 秒 →

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