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一千万 (yī qiān wàn) — ten million

Definition

numeral
ten million

Examples

  • 一千万。
    Zhè jiā gōng sī yì nián zhuàn le yī qiān wàn.
    This company earned ten million in one year.
  • 一千万。
    Zhè ge chéng shì yǒu yī qiān wàn rén kǒu.
    This city has ten million people.
  • 一千万。
    Tā huā yī qiān wàn mǎi le yí tào fáng zi.
    He spent ten million to buy a house.

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.

一千one thousand
一yīone千qiānthousand
偏正Modifier + head
万wànten thousand

一千 is one thousand and 万 is ten thousand, so together they mean ten million.

Characters in this word

An abstract idea shown by a mark or a diagram rather than by a picture of an object.

一 is drawn as one horizontal stroke, marking the number one.

Open 一 →

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
一一yīone, signifying a number
Sound part声符shēngfú
人
人rén千qiān
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

千 pairs 人, whose sound was similar, with 一, a number stroke; the extra line was explained as extension, and a thousand is a number reached by extending counting.

Open 千 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 萬; 万 is its simplified writing.

For 万, the form 萬 was originally a picture of a scorpion, later borrowed for its sound to write 'ten thousand'; the scorpion picture is unrelated to that number.

Open 万 →
Appears in
Numbers & Counting

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