TongTong
Sign in

大餐 (dà cān) — sumptuous meal, feast, banquet; (colloquial) Western-style food

Definition

大餐 is a 'big meal' — either a sumptuous feast or, in everyday talk, Western-style food. The English word 'banquet' captures only the formal sense; the colloquial Western-food meaning (see 西餐) is what most learners actually meet.

noun
sumptuous mealfeastbanquet(colloquial) Western-style food
Measure word · 顿

Examples

  • 大餐！
    Jīn wǎn wǒ men yì qǐ qù chī dà cān ba!
    Let's go out for a feast tonight!
  • 大餐，。
    Hái zi xiǎng chī dà cān, suǒ yǐ wǒ men qù le xī cān tīng.
    The child wanted to eat Western food, so we went to a Western restaurant.
  • 大餐，。
    Zhè jiā fàn diàn de dà cān fēi cháng yǒu míng, xū yào tí qián yù dìng.
    The feast at this restaurant is very famous; you need to book in advance.

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.

大dàbig
餐cānmeal

大 adds size or grandness to 餐, a meal, making a feast.

Characters in this word

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

The form 大 is a picture of a person standing and facing forward, not of someone stretching their arms.

Open 大 →

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
食食shíto eat; meal; food
Sound part声符shēngfú
𣦼
𣦼𣦼餐cān
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

餐 combines 食, meaning food or eating, with 𣦼 as the sound part; it originally meant “to swallow.”

Open 餐 →
Appears in
Dining & RestaurantsFood (General)

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