丹麦 (Dān mài) — Denmark | tongtong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

noun

Denmark

丹麦。
Wǒ qù nián xià tiān qù le Dān mài lǚ xíng.
I went to Denmark on a trip last summer.
丹麦。
Dān mài De shǒu dū shì gē běn hā gēn.
The capital of Denmark is Copenhagen.
丹麦。
Zhè ge shè jì lái zì Dān mài de yí gè xiǎo gōng sī.
This design comes from a small company in Denmark.

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.

The characters 丹 and 麦 only spell the foreign name for Denmark; neither carries its usual meaning here.

Sound-only characters

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

The shape 丹 shows a well or mine with red cinnabar inside.

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 麥; 麦 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú

夊夊suīfootprint pointing down; to walk slowly

Sound part声符shēngfú

來

來lái麥mài

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

For 麦, the traditional form 麥 pairs 來, which gives the sound and once meant wheat, with 夊, a footprint pointing down for slow walking.