不列颠 (Bù liè diān) — (place name) Britain (the island of Great Britain)

Definition

不列颠 literally means the island of Great Britain, used as the formal/encyclopedic name in compounds like 不列颠群岛 or 不列颠文化. In everyday speech learners should use 英国 instead.

noun
(place name) Britain (the island of Great Britain)

Examples

  • 不列颠。
    Bù liè diān Shì yí gè dǎo yǔ.
    Britain is an island.
  • 不列颠。
    Wǒ qù guò Bù liè diān lǚ xíng.
    I have traveled to Britain.
  • 不列颠。
    Bù liè diān De wén huà yǐng xiǎng le hěn duō guó jiā.
    Britain's culture has influenced many countries.

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.

不bù
列liè
颠diān

The characters only spell the foreign name Britain; none carries its own meaning here.

Sound-only characters

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

The picture in 不 originally showed a flower’s calyx; the “no” sense came later from a related character, not from this picture.

Open 不 →

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

列 combines 歹, drawn as skeletal remains, and 刀, a knife, to depict tearing apart.

Open 列 →

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 顛; 颠 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
頁頁yèhead
Sound part声符shēngfú
真
真zhēn顛diān
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The traditional form 顛 combines 頁, a head, with 真 as a sound clue; the simplified 颠 is a later shorthand, and its parts are not the historical pieces.

Open 颠 →

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