咖喱 (gā lí) — curry | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

noun

curry

咖喱，。
Wǒ zhǔn bèi zuò gā lí fàn, nǐ qù mǎi diǎn tǔ dòu ba.
I'm planning to make curry rice; you go buy some potatoes.
咖喱，。
Zhè jiā diàn de gā lí hěn hǎo chī, wèi dào hěn nóng.
The curry at this restaurant is delicious, with a strong flavor.
咖喱。
gā lí Shì yìn dù cháng jiàn de tiáo wèi pǐn.
Curry is a common seasoning in India.

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.

喱lí

咖喱 spells the foreign sound for curry; the two characters carry no independent meaning here.

Sound-only characters

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

口加咖

Meaning part形符xíngfú

口口kǒumouth

Sound part声符shēngfú

加

The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The left part is 口, showing a mouth, and the right part is 加, which gives the sound jiā.

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Appears in