黑手党 (hēi shǒu dǎng) — Mafia (the criminal organization of Italian ori…

Definition

Literally 'black-hand gang': refers originally to the Italian Mafia and, by extension, any organized crime syndicate.

noun

Mafia (the criminal organization of Italian origin)(by extension) organized crime syndicategang

黑手党。
Yì dà lì hēi shǒu dǎng yǐ yán mì de zǔ zhī jié gòu hé jiā zú shì guǎn lǐ wén míng.
The Italian Mafia is known for its tight organizational structure and family-style management.
黑手党。
Hěn duō hǎo lái wù diàn yǐng dōu yǐ hēi shǒu dǎng wèi tí cái.
Many Hollywood movies take the Mafia as their subject matter.
黑手党。
Jǐng fāng duō nián lái yì zhí zài dǎ jī dāng dì hēi shǒu dǎng shì lì.
The police have been cracking down on local Mafia forces for years.

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.

黑手

偏正Modifier + head

党dǎngparty or organization

黑手 means black hand, and 党 denotes a party or organization.

Characters in this word

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

The shape of 黑 seems to come from drawing a head marked with dots, usually read as facial tattoos.

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

手 draws a five-fingered human hand: the top line is a bent middle finger, and the horizontal lines show the other four fingers.

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

儿儿érhuman

Sound part声符shēngfú

尚

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

党 pairs 尚, giving its sound, with 儿, a human.

Appears in