八十五 (bā shí wǔ) — eighty-five

Definition

numeral
eighty-five

Examples

  • 八十五。
    Yé ye jīn nián bā shí wǔ suì le.
    Grandpa is eighty-five years old this year.
  • 八十五。
    Zhè běn shū yǒu bā shí wǔ yè.
    This book has eighty-five pages.
  • 八十五。
    Kǎo shì dé le bā shí wǔ fēn.
    I got eighty-five points on the exam.

Origin

Characters in this word

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

八 shows two bent lines, indicating the original meaning 'to divide'; it was later used for 'eight' because the words sounded alike.

Open 八 →

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 →

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 →

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