未婚夫 (wèi hūn fū) — fiancé | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

noun

fiancé

Measure word · 个

未婚夫。
Tā de wèi hūn fū shì yì míng yī shēng.
Her fiancé is a doctor.
未婚夫。
Wǒ zuó tiān jiàn dào le xiǎo wáng de wèi hūn fū.
I met Xiao Wang's fiancé yesterday.
未婚夫。
Tā hé wèi hūn fū jì huà míng nián jié hūn.
She and her fiancé plan to get married next year.

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.

未婚not married

偏正Modifier + head

未婚夫 combines 未 'not yet' and 婚 'marry' to describe a 夫 'man'.

Characters in this word

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

The shape 未 shows a tree with extra branches spreading above its trunk, like lush, overlapping limbs.

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

女昏婚

Meaning part形符xíngfú

Sound part声符shēngfú

昏

Same sound today

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

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.

夫 originally drew a man. It was borrowed purely for its sound to write a pronoun, so the picture and the pronoun meaning are unrelated.

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