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飞船 (fēi chuán) — spaceship, spacecraft; airship, dirigible

Definition

飞船 specifically means a powered flying craft — modern 'spaceship' (e.g. 宇宙飞船) or historical 'airship/dirigible'. Unlike 船只 and 船舶, which are collective/general terms for ships and boats, 飞船 is a single, specialized flying vehicle, not a water vessel.

noun
spaceshipspacecraftairshipdirigible
Measure word · 艘

Examples

  • 飞船。
    Zhè sōu fēi chuán jiāng zǎi zhe yǔ háng yuán fēi xiàng tài kōng.
    This spaceship will carry astronauts into space.
  • 飞船。
    Zǎo qī de fēi chuán dà duō yòng qīng qì zuò wéi fú lì qì tǐ.
    Early airships mostly used hydrogen as lifting gas.
  • 飞船。
    Zhè sōu fēi chuán de shè jì róng hé le háng tiān yǔ háng kōng jì shù.
    The design of this spacecraft blends aerospace and aviation technology.

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.

飞fēifly
船chuánship

飞 describes movement through the air, and 船 is a vessel, together a flying vessel.

Characters in this word

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 飛; 飞 is its simplified writing.

For 飞, the traditional form 飛 pictures a bird flying upwards.

Open 飞 →

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
舟舟zhōuboat
Sound part声符shēngfú
㕣
㕣㕣船
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

船 pairs 舟 (boat) with 㕣 for its sound.

Open 船 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 7-9Space Exploration5000 Most Frequent Chinese Words

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