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婚后 (hūn hòu) — after marriage, post-marital

Definition

noun
after marriagepost-marital

Examples

  • 婚后。
    Tā men hūn hòu de shēng huó hěn xìng fú.
    Their post-marital life is very happy.
  • 婚后，。
    hūn hòu, Tā gǎi yòng le zhàng fu de xìng shì.
    After marriage, she changed to her husband's surname.
  • 婚后。
    hūn hòu Méi duō jiǔ tā men jiù bān le xīn jiā.
    Not long after marriage, they moved to a new home.

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.

婚hūnmarriage
后hòuafter

婚 means marriage and 后 means after, so the word denotes the time following marriage.

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
女女nǚ
Sound part声符shēngfú
昏
昏hūn婚hūn
Same sound today

婚 uses 女 (woman) for the meaning and 昏 for the sound hūn.

Open 婚 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 後; 后 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 後 showed 夊 (foot) bound by 幺 (thread), a foot caught by a rope and lagging behind; the simplified 后 is a later abbreviation, and 后 also has a different meaning.

Open 后 →
Appears in
Romance & Marriage

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