村夫 (cūn fū) — villager (person living in the countryside); vulgar and naïve person (derogatory term for an uneducated rustic)

Definition

Literary/formal word; in neutral contexts it just means a countryside dweller, but it is often used pejoratively to call someone an uneducated rustic. At HSK 7, expect the derogatory sense in classical-style writing.

noun
villager (person living in the countryside)vulgar and naïve person (derogatory term for an uneducated rustic)
Measure word · 个

Examples

  • 村夫。
    Nà wèi cūn fū měi tiān tiān bú liàng jiù xià dì gàn huó le.
    That villager goes to work in the fields before daylight every day.
  • ，村夫。
    Tā shuō huà cū sú, jiǎn zhí xiàng gè méi yǒu lǐ mào de cūn fū.
    His speech is so coarse that he's just like an ill-mannered rustic.
  • 村夫，。
    Xiǎo shuō lǐ de nà ge cūn fū suī rán yú dùn, què xīn dì shàn liáng.
    That rustic in the novel, though dim-witted, was kind-hearted.

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.

村cūnvillage
夫fūman

村 village and 夫 man combine to mean a man from a village.

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
木木mùtree
Sound part声符shēngfú
寸
寸cùn村cūn
Same sound today

村 pairs 木 (tree) with 寸 as a sound hint; its origin is unclear.

Open 村 →

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.

Open 夫 →

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