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五彩 (wǔ cǎi) — five colors (blue, yellow, red, white, black) in traditional Chinese color theory; multicolored, colorful

Definition

Literally 'five colors' — in traditional Chinese color theory the five are blue, yellow, red, white, and black. Used today mainly as a literary word for 'multicolored / colorful,' as in 五彩缤纷.

noun
five colors (blue, yellow, red, white, black) in traditional Chinese color theorymulticoloredcolorful

Examples

  • 五彩。
    Zhè jiàn wǔ cǎi cí qì shì míng cháo de.
    This piece of five-color porcelain is from the Ming dynasty.
  • 五彩。
    Jié rì de jiē dào shàng guà mǎn le wǔ cǎi de dēng long.
    The holiday streets are hung with colorful lanterns.
  • 五彩。
    Qiū tiān de shān lín chéng xiàn chū yí piàn wǔ cǎi.
    The autumn mountains and forests present a scene of multicolored splendor.

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
彩cǎicolors

五彩 combines 五 five with 彩 colors to suggest many bright colors.

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 →

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
彡彡shān
Sound part声符shēngfú
采
采cǎi彩cǎi
Same sound today

彩 puts 采, which gives the sound, next to 彡, the three-stroke mark that carries the meaning.

Open 彩 →
Appears in
Colors

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