毒品 (dú pǐn) — illegal drugs, narcotics | tongtong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

毒品 specifically means illegal/narcotic drugs — not legal medicine (药, 药品, 药物, 医药) and not poison in general (毒).

noun

illegal drugsnarcotics

Measure word · 种

Examples

毒品。
Xī shí dú pǐn duì jiàn kāng yǒu jí dà de wēi hài.
Taking drugs is extremely harmful to your health.
毒品。
Zhèng fǔ yán lì dǎ jī dú pǐn fàn zuì huó dòng.
The government severely cracks down on drug-related criminal activities.
毒品。
Tā yīn wèi fàn mài dú pǐn bèi pàn le shí nián yǒu qī tú xíng.
He was sentenced to ten years in prison for drug trafficking.

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.

毒dúpoison

毒 'poison' and 品 'goods' combine to mean poisonous goods, hence narcotics.

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

屮屮chèvegetation

Sound part声符shēngfú

毐

毐ǎi毒dú

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

毒 pairs 屮, a plant part, with 毐 as a sound part; this form was used for a poisonous plant.

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

品 repeats the same simple shape three times, representing various objects.

Appears in

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