利比亚 (Lì bǐ yà) — Libya

Definition

noun
Libya

Examples

  • 利比亚，。
    Wǒ qù guò Lì bǐ yà liǎng cì, nà lǐ de shā mò fēi cháng zhuàng guān.
    I have been to Libya twice; the desert there is spectacular.
  • 利比亚。
    Lì bǐ yà De shí yóu zī yuán fēi cháng fēng fù.
    Libya's oil resources are very abundant.
  • 利比亚。
    Tā zhèng zài yán jiū Lì bǐ yà de gǔ dài lì shǐ.
    He is researching the ancient history of Libya.

Origin

Single-morpheme word
构词法gòucífǎ
音译yīnyìTransliteration

The characters spell the sound of a foreign word; their individual meanings play no part.

利lì
比bǐ
亚yà

The characters carry no meaning of their own here; together they transliterate the name Libya.

Sound-only characters

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

利 combines 禾 (grain) and 刀 (knife), showing a knife used to cut grain.

Open 利 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

  • 匕匕bǐ
  • 匕匕bǐ

比 is two 匕 placed side by side. Chu Wan-li treats both as sound parts, while an old reading takes the side-by-side arrangement as putting things next to each other.

Open 比 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 亞; 亚 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 亞 likely shows an overhead view of a construction, perhaps a 亞-shaped tomb. Its later simplified form 亚 is just a shorthand.

Open 亚 →

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