金斯敦 (jīn sī dūn) — Kingstown (capital of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines); Kingston (capital of Jamaica)

Definition

金 sī dūn is the Chinese rendering used for several English place names ending in '-ton': Kingston (Jamaica's capital) and Kingstown (capital of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines). Pronounced jīn sī dūn, with even stress on each syllable.

noun
Kingstown (capital of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines)Kingston (capital of Jamaica)

Examples

  • 金斯敦。
    jīn sī dūn Shì shèng wén sēn tè hé gé lín nà dīng sī de shǒu dū.
    Kingstown is the capital of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
  • 金斯敦。
    Yá mǎi jiā de shǒu dū jīn sī dūn shì yí gè zhòng yào de gǎng kǒu chéng shì.
    Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, is an important port city.
  • 金斯敦。
    Wǒ zài dì tú shàng zhǎo dào le jīn sī dūn de wèi zhì.
    I found the location of Kingston/Kingstown on the map.

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.

金jīn
斯sī
敦dūn

金斯敦 spells Kingston/Kingstown; the characters carry no meaning of their own and only represent the foreign sounds.

Sound-only characters

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

金 was drawn with marks for two pieces of metal, along with a part that gave its sound; it first meant copper, then metals and gold.

Open 金 →

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Open 斯 →

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

  • 亯亯xiǎngancestral shrine
  • 羊羊yángsheep

The form behind 敦 combines 亯, an ancestral shrine, with 羊, a sheep, showing a cooked goat as a sacrifice.

Open 敦 →

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