八千万 (bā qiān wàn) — eighty million (80,000,000)

Definition

A large cardinal number meaning 'eighty million'. Used in formal, written, and financial contexts (population, revenue, asset values) — much larger than everyday counts like 万 (10,000) or 亿 (100,000,000) only when needed for precision.

numeral
eighty million (80,000,000)
Easily confused

Examples

  • 八千万。
    Zhè ge chéng shì yǒu bā qiān wàn rén kǒu.
    This city has a population of eighty million.
  • 八千万。
    Tā huā le bā qiān wàn mǎi xià nà dòng lóu.
    He spent eighty million to buy that building.
  • 八千万。
    Gōng sī qù nián zhuàn le bā qiān wàn lì rùn.
    The company earned eighty million in profit last year.

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 →

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yīone, signifying a number
Sound part声符shēngfú
人
人rén千qiān
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

千 pairs 人, whose sound was similar, with 一, a number stroke; the extra line was explained as extension, and a thousand is a number reached by extending counting.

Open 千 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 萬; 万 is its simplified writing.

For 万, the form 萬 was originally a picture of a scorpion, later borrowed for its sound to write 'ten thousand'; the scorpion picture is unrelated to that number.

Open 万 →

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