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冥想 (míng xiǎng) — meditation; deep thought

Definition

冥想 covers both the practice of meditation (as a noun, 'meditation') and the act of deep, focused thinking (as a verb, 'to meditate / to think deeply'). It is more literary and deliberate than everyday words for thinking.

meditationdeep thought

Examples

  • 冥想。
    Tā měi tiān zǎo chén dōu huì huā yì xiǎo shí jìn xíng míng xiǎng.
    He spends an hour every morning doing meditation.
  • 冥想，。
    Jīng guò cháng shí jiān de míng xiǎng, tā zhōng yú zhǎo dào le wèn tí de dá àn.
    After a long period of deep thought, he finally found the answer to the problem.
  • 冥想，。
    míng xiǎng Kě yǐ bāng zhù nǐ fàng sōng shēn xīn, tí gāo zhuān zhù lì.
    Meditation can help you relax your body and mind and improve concentration.

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.

冥míngdeep/dark
想xiǎngthought

冥 means deep or dark and 想 means thought, together giving deep thought.

Characters in this word

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

  • 冖冖mìcloth cover
  • 日日rìsun
  • 廾廾gǒngtwo hands

Originally, 冥 was made from 冖 (cloth cover), 日 (sun), and 廾 (two hands) to show darkness; the 廾 part later changed.

Open 冥 →

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
心心xīnheart, mind
Sound part声符shēngfú
相
相xiāng想xiǎng
Same sound today

想 has 心 (heart, mind) below 相 (to look at); the shape shows the mind looking at or considering something, and 相 also gives the sound.

Open 想 →
Appears in
Thinking & Cognition

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