乌拉尔 (Wū lā ěr) — Ural (mountain range or region in Russia)

Definition

noun
Ural (mountain range or region in Russia)

Examples

  • 乌拉尔。
    Wū lā ěr Shān mài shì ōu yà liǎng zhōu de fēn jiè xiàn.
    The Ural Mountains are the dividing line between Europe and Asia.
  • 乌拉尔。
    Tā lái zì Wū lā ěr dì qū de yí gè xiǎo chéng shì.
    He comes from a small city in the Ural region.
  • 乌拉尔。
    Wū lā ěr Hé quán cháng yuē liǎng qiān wǔ bǎi gōng lǐ.
    The Ural River is about 2,500 kilometers long.

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.

乌wū
拉lā
尔ěr

These characters only spell the foreign place name and carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 烏; 乌 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 烏 is a drawing of a bird. The simplified 乌 is a later abbreviation.

Open 乌 →

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
手手shǒuhand
Sound part声符shēngfú
立
立lì拉lā
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

拉 pairs 手 (hand) with 立, a component that supplies the sound.

Open 拉 →

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

假借jiǎjièLater borrowed for its sound alone — the picture has nothing to do with today’s meaning.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 爾; 尔 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 爾, simplified as 尔, originally drew cloth on a loom with crossing threads. It was borrowed for its sound to write “you,” so the picture is unrelated to that meaning.

Open 尔 →

Browse more HSK 7-9 words or search the full 43,000-word dictionary.