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五十 (wǔ shí) — fifty

Definition

numeral
fifty

Examples

  • 五十。
    Tā jīn nián wǔ shí suì le.
    He is fifty years old this year.
  • 五十。
    Zhè ge xué xiào yǒu wǔ shí gè xué shēng.
    This school has fifty students.
  • 五十。
    Zhè běn shū yào wǔ shí yuán.
    This book costs fifty yuan.

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.

五wǔfive
十shíten

五 (five) before 十 (ten) gives five tens, the number fifty.

Characters in this word

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 →

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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