肮脏 (āng zàng) — dirty, filthy

Definition

adjective
dirtyfilthy

Examples

  • 肮脏
    Zhè tiáo jiē dào fēi cháng āng zàng, dào chù dōu shì lā jī.
    This street is very dirty, full of trash everywhere.
  • 肮脏
    Tā jīng cháng shuō yì xiē āng zàng de xiào hua, ràng rén hěn bù shū fu.
    He often tells dirty jokes that make people uncomfortable.
  • 肮脏
    Zhè jiàn yī fu tài āng zàng le, xū yào mǎ shàng xǐ yi xǐ.
    This piece of clothing is too dirty; it needs to be washed right away.

Origin

Single-morpheme word
构词法gòucífǎ
联绵liánmiánBound pair

Two characters that only ever appear together, spelling one ancient two-syllable word.

āng

The characters 肮 and 脏 carry no meaning of their own here; together they mean dirty.

Sound-only characters

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 髒; 脏 is its simplified writing.

The simplified 脏 stands for more than one traditional character. In most words (心脏) it is 臟; in others (脏) it is 髒.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
bone
Sound part声符shēngfú
zàngzàng
Same sound today

The traditional form 髒 combines 骨 (bone) with 葬 (zàng) for the sound.

Open 脏 →

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