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九十 (jiǔ shí) — ninety

Definition

numeral
ninety

Examples

  • 九十。
    Wǒ yé ye jīn nián jiǔ shí suì le.
    My grandfather is ninety years old this year.
  • 九十。
    Zhè běn shū yǒu jiǔ shí yè.
    This book has ninety pages.
  • 九十。
    Tā chū shēng zài jiǔ shí nián dài.
    He was born in the nineties (1990s).

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.

九jiǔnine
十shíten

九 “nine” + 十 “ten” expresses nine tens, i.e. ninety.

Characters in this word

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

The shape comes from a stylized hand bent at the wrist, with the lower-right hook showing the bend. Later, it was taken to show a tightened fist bumping up to ten, giving the number nine.

Open 九 →

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

The early shape 十 was mostly a single vertical stroke, sometimes with a dot, and later gained a horizontal stroke to form a cross. For the number ten, it marked the next digit above one.

Open 十 →
Appears in
Numbers & Counting

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