葡萄牙 (Pú táo yá) — Portugal

Definition

noun
Portugal

Examples

  • 葡萄牙。
    Pú táo yá De shǒu dū shì lǐ sī běn.
    The capital of Portugal is Lisbon.
  • 葡萄牙，。
    Wǒ qù guò Pú táo yá lǚ yóu, nà lǐ de dàn tà hěn yǒu míng.
    I've traveled to Portugal; the egg tarts there are very famous.
  • 。
    Pú táo yá Yǔ hé xī bān yá yǔ hěn xiāng sì.
    Portuguese and Spanish are very similar.

Origin

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.

葡pú
萄táo
牙yá

The characters 葡, 萄, and 牙 carry no independent meaning here; together they spell Portugal.

Sound-only characters

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
艸艸cǎograss
Sound part声符shēngfú
匍
匍pú葡
Same sound today

葡 is built from 艸 (grass) plus 匍 as the sound part. For the grape meaning, the old explanation also links it to a sprout growing in a field, so the shape points to plants.

Open 葡 →

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
艹Written in full as艸cǎo
Sound part声符shēngfú
匋
匋táo萄
Same sound today

The top 艹 marks 萄 as a plant, and 匋 gives its sound. The part 匋 also points to making an earthenware jar, possibly for a plant used to make wine.

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Open 牙 →

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