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中餐 (zhōng cān) — Chinese food; Chinese cuisine

Definition

中餐 is 'Chinese food / Chinese cuisine' — the style of cooking, not a meal time. Contrast with 午餐 (lunch) and 晚餐 (dinner), which name a specific meal; 快餐 is fast food in general.

noun
Chinese foodChinese cuisine
Measure word · 份, 顿

Examples

  • 中餐。
    Wǒ mā ma xǐ huan zuò zhōng cān.
    My mom likes to cook Chinese food.
  • 中餐。
    Zhè jiā zhōng cān cān tīng de cài hěn yǒu míng.
    The dishes at this Chinese restaurant are very famous.
  • 中餐。
    Wǒ men jīn wǎn chī zhōng cān ba.
    Let's eat Chinese food tonight.

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.

中zhōngChinese
餐cānmeal

中餐 combines 中, pointing to Chinese cuisine, with 餐, a meal, giving a Chinese-style meal or lunch.

Characters in this word

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

The original picture showed a flagpole with a drum in the middle, set up in the center of a field.

Open 中 →

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
食食shíto eat; meal; food
Sound part声符shēngfú
𣦼
𣦼𣦼餐cān
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

餐 combines 食, meaning food or eating, with 𣦼 as the sound part; it originally meant “to swallow.”

Open 餐 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 4Chinese Culture & CustomsFood (General)

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