多佛 (Duō fó) — Dover (city in England) | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

noun

Dover (city in England)

Examples

多佛。
Wǒ dǎ suàn míng nián qù Duō fó lǚ yóu.
I plan to visit Dover next year.
多佛。
Duō fó Shì yīng guó de yí gè gǎng kǒu chéng shì.
Dover is a port city in the UK.
多佛。
Tā zuò chuán cóng Duō fó qù fǎ guó.
He took a boat from Dover to France.

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.

'多佛' spells the foreign name Dover; the characters carry no meaning here.

Sound-only characters

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

多 originally showed two pieces of meat placed together; the repeated meat shape gives the sense of many.

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

亻弗佛

Meaning part形符xíngfú

亻Written in full as人rénperson

Sound part声符shēngfú

弗

弗fú佛Fó

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

佛 is made from 亻, a person, and 弗, which gives the sound.

Appears in

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