肯尼思 (kěn ní sāi) — Kenneth (transliteration of the English name)

Definition

A transliteration of the English name 'Kenneth', used as a personal name in Chinese contexts. It's the same as 肯尼斯 — different ending syllable only.

noun

Kenneth (transliteration of the English name)

肯尼思。
kěn ní sāi Shì wǒ de dà xué tóng xué.
Kenneth is my college classmate.
肯尼思？
Nǐ rèn shi kěn ní sāi ma?
Do you know Kenneth?
肯尼思。
kěn ní sāi Zuó tiān gěi wǒ fā le yì fēng yóu jiàn.
Kenneth sent me an email yesterday.

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.

The characters 肯, 尼, and 思 carry no meaning here; they spell the name Kenneth.

Sound-only characters

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

肯 is described as showing 冎 (bone) and 肉 (meat), meaning meat attached to the bone.

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

The shape draws one person sitting on or leaning against another person, giving the sense of stopping close to someone.

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

心心xīnheart

Sound part声符shēngfú

囟

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

In 思, 心 (heart) points to thinking, while the top part is a changed form of 囟, which supplied the sound.