诗人 (shī rén) — poet | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

诗人 is the person who writes 诗 (poems), not the poems themselves — 诗 and 诗歌 refer to the written work.

noun

poet

Measure word · 位

Examples

诗人。
Zhè wèi shī rén huò dé le yí gè zhòng yào de wén xué jiǎng.
This poet won an important literary award.
诗人。
Hěn duō shī rén xǐ huan yòng zì rán zuò wéi zhǔ tí.
Many poets like to use nature as their theme.
。
Tā cóng xiǎo jiù xiǎng dāng yì míng shī rén.
He has wanted to be a poet since childhood.

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.

'诗' means poem and '人' means person, so it denotes a person who makes poems.

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.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 詩; 诗 is its simplified writing.

言寺詩

Meaning part形符xíngfú

言言yánspeech

Sound part声符shēngfú

寺

寺sì詩shī

Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The traditional form 詩 combines 言 (speech) with 寺 as a sound part, because poetry is a kind of speech; the simplified 诗 is a later abbreviation.

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The shape of 人 shows a side view of a standing person, with an arm and a leg.

Appears in

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