波音 (Bō yīn) — Boeing (aircraft manufacturer)

Definition

noun

Boeing (aircraft manufacturer)

波音。
Zhōng guó dìng gòu le yì bǎi jià Bō yīn fēi jī.
China ordered a hundred Boeing aircraft.
波音。
Bō yīn Gōng sī de gǔ jià zuì jìn dà fú shàng zhǎng.
Boeing's stock price has risen sharply recently.
波音。
Zhè jiā háng kōng gōng sī gòu mǎi le sān jià Bō yīn.
This airline purchased three Boeing planes.

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.

波 and 音 carry no meaning of their own here; the two syllables together transliterate the name Boeing.

Sound-only characters

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

氵皮波

Meaning part形符xíngfú

氵Written in full as水shuǐwater

Sound part声符shēngfú

皮

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

The left side 氵 is water, and the right side 皮 gives the sound.

An abstract idea shown by a mark or a diagram rather than by a picture of an object.

音 adds a short stroke that seals the mouth-like part, showing a covered or muffled sound rather than speech.

Appears in