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五百 (wǔ bǎi) — five hundred

Definition

numeral
five hundred

Examples

  • 五百。
    Zhè ge jiào shì lǐ yǒu wǔ bǎi gè xué shēng.
    There are five hundred students in this classroom.
  • 五百。
    Zhè běn shū de jià gé shì wǔ bǎi kuài.
    The price of this book is five hundred yuan.
  • 五百。
    Gōng sī jīn nián zhāo le wǔ bǎi míng xīn yuán gōng.
    The company hired five hundred new employees this year.

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
百bǎihundred

五 gives 'five' and 百 gives 'hundred', making 'five hundred'.

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
一一yī
Sound part声符shēngfú
白
白bái百bǎi
Same sound today

百 combines 一, which carries the number meaning, with 白, which provides the sound.

Open 百 →
Appears in
Numbers & Counting

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