巴塞尔 (Bā sāi ěr) — Basel (city in Switzerland)

Definition

noun
Basel (city in Switzerland)

Examples

  • 巴塞尔。
    Wǒ míng nián yào qù Bā sāi ěr lǚ yóu.
    I want to travel to Basel next year.
  • 巴塞尔。
    Bā sāi ěr Shì ruì shì de yí gè chéng shì.
    Basel is a city in Switzerland.
  • 巴塞尔。
    Lái yīn hé jīng guò Bā sāi ěr.
    The Rhine River passes through Basel.

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.

巴bā
塞sāi
尔ěr

The characters spell the foreign name Basel and carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Open 巴 →

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

  • 宀宀miánhouse
  • 工工gōngtwo items
  • 廾廾gǒngtwo hands

塞 combines 宀 (house), 工 (two items), and 廾 (two hands), showing hands stuffing items into a house.

Open 塞 →

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

假借jiǎjièLater borrowed for its sound alone — the picture has nothing to do with today’s meaning.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 爾; 尔 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 爾, simplified as 尔, originally drew cloth on a loom with crossing threads. It was borrowed for its sound to write “you,” so the picture is unrelated to that meaning.

Open 尔 →

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