印度 (Yìn dù) — India | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

noun

India

印度。
Yìn dù Shì yí gè rén kǒu dà guó.
India is a populous country.
印度。
Wǒ míng nián xiǎng qù Yìn dù lǚ xíng.
I want to travel to India next year.
印度。
Yìn dù De yǐn shí wén huà fēi cháng fēng fù.
India's food culture is very rich.

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.

The characters 印度 carry no meaning of their own here; the word spells the name India.

Sound-only characters

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

印 pairs 爪 (hand) with 卩 (kneeling person), showing a hand pressing down on a kneeling person.

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

Sound part声符shēngfú

石

The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

度 has 又 (hand) and a changed form of 石; 石 gives a related sound, and the hand is tied to using the hand as a reference for measurement.

Appears in