巴哈马 (Bā hā mǎ) — the Bahamas (country)

Definition

noun

the Bahamas (country)

巴哈马。
Bā hā mǎ Shì yí gè yóu qī bǎi duō gè dǎo yǔ zǔ chéng de guó jiā.
The Bahamas is a country made up of over seven hundred islands.
巴哈马。
Měi nián dōng tiān dōu yǒu dà liàng yóu kè qù Bā hā mǎ dù jià.
Each winter, a large number of tourists go to the Bahamas for vacation.
巴哈马。
Bā hā mǎ De shǒu dū ná sāo shì yí gè zhù míng de gǎng kǒu chéng shì.
Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, is a famous port city.

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.

The characters 巴哈马 only spell the foreign name Bahamas and carry no meanings here.

Sound-only characters

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

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

口合哈

Meaning part形符xíngfú

口口kǒumouth

Sound part声符shēngfú

合

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

哈 uses 口 (mouth) to show a mouth-related idea, and 合 as a sound part. The shape of 合 may look like two open mouths, but that is likely by chance.

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 馬; 马 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 馬 shows a horse with its head facing left, a flowing mane, and two legs standing vertically.

Appears in