千米 (qiān mǐ) — kilometer

Definition

classifier
kilometer

Examples

  • 。
    Xué xiào lí wǒ jiā dà yuē liǎng qiān mǐ.
    The school is about two kilometers from my home.
  • 千米。
    Zhè tiáo gōng lù quán cháng yì bǎi qiān mǐ.
    This highway is a hundred kilometers long.
  • 。
    Tā měi tiān pǎo bù wǔ qiān mǐ.
    He runs five kilometers every day.

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.

千qiānthousand
米mǐmeter

千 means thousand and 米 means meter, so the word denotes a thousand meters.

Characters in this word

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
一一yīone, signifying a number
Sound part声符shēngfú
人
人rén千qiān
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

千 pairs 人, whose sound was similar, with 一, a number stroke; the extra line was explained as extension, and a thousand is a number reached by extending counting.

Open 千 →

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

米 is a picture of rice kernels without husk, with the horizontal stroke as a bamboo sieve. It is unrelated to similar-looking grain characters.

Open 米 →

Browse more HSK 7-9 words or search the full 43,000-word dictionary.