二万五千 (èr wàn wǔ qiān) — 25,000 (twenty-five thousand)

Definition

numeral
25,000 (twenty-five thousand)
Easily confused

Examples

  • 二万五千。
    Zhè ge chéng shì de rén kǒu chāo guò èr wàn wǔ qiān.
    The population of this city exceeds 25,000.
  • 二万五千。
    Tā yì nián zhuàn èr wàn wǔ qiān kuài qián.
    He earns 25,000 yuan a year.
  • 二万五千。
    Wǒ men xué xiào yǒu èr wàn wǔ qiān míng xué shēng.
    Our school has 25,000 students.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
联合liánhéSide by side

Two parts of equal weight, alike or opposite in meaning, standing side by side.

二万twenty thousand
二èrtwo万wànten thousand
偏正Modifier + head
五千five thousand
五wǔfive千qiānthousand
偏正Modifier + head

二万 is twenty thousand and 五千 is five thousand, together making twenty-five thousand.

Characters in this word

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

二 is drawn as two parallel strokes, where the number of strokes shows the amount.

Open 二 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 萬; 万 is its simplified writing.

For 万, the form 萬 was originally a picture of a scorpion, later borrowed for its sound to write 'ten thousand'; the scorpion picture is unrelated to that number.

Open 万 →

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

An older form had a crossed mark between a top bar and a bottom bar. The modern 五 keeps those bars, while the original idea is uncertain.

Open 五 →

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
一一yīone, signifying a number
Sound part声符shēngfú
人
人rén千qiān
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

千 pairs 人, whose sound was similar, with 一, a number stroke; the extra line was explained as extension, and a thousand is a number reached by extending counting.

Open 千 →

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