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停车 (tíng chē) — to park (a vehicle); to pull up and stop; to stop working, to stall (of a machine)

Definition

停车 (tíngchē) is a verb-object phrase: 'park a car' or 'pull over/stop driving'. Unlike bare 停 (a general 'stop'), 停车 is specifically about vehicles or a machine stalling.

verb
to park (a vehicle)to pull up and stopto stop workingto stall (of a machine)

Examples

  • 停车。
    Wǒ bǎ chē tíng chē zài lù biān le.
    I parked the car by the roadside.
  • 。
    Tā tíng hǎo chē jiù shàng lóu le.
    He parked the car and went upstairs.
  • 停车，。
    Jī qì tū rán tíng chē le, xū yào xiū lǐ.
    The machine suddenly stopped working and needs repair.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
动宾dòngbīnVerb + object

An action followed by what it acts on, fused into one word.

停tíngstop
车chēvehicle

停 (stop) acts on 车 (vehicle), meaning to stop or park a vehicle.

Characters in this word

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
亻Written in full as人rén
Sound part声符shēngfú
亭
亭tíng停tíng
Same sound today

The left side 亻 is a person, and the right side 亭 gives the sound tíng; this forms 停.

Open 停 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 車; 车 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 車 was drawn as a carriage seen from above, with wheels on both sides and a shaft at the front; the simplified 车 is a later shorthand.

Open 车 →
Appears in
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