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名词 (míng cí) — (grammar) noun; term; (professional) name

Definition

The grammatical term for 'noun' — the word class for names of things, people, and places, distinct from 动词 (verb) and 形容词 (adjective).

noun
(grammar) nounterm(professional) name
Measure word · 个

Examples

  • 名词。
    Xué xí yì mén yǔ yán yào xiān zhǎng wò jī běn míng cí.
    To learn a language, you must first master basic nouns.
  • 名词，。
    Zhè shì yí gè zhuān yè míng cí, xū yào chá yí xià cí diǎn.
    This is a technical term; you need to look it up in a dictionary.
  • ，名词。
    Zài yǔ fǎ fēn xī zhōng, míng cí hé dòng cí de gōng néng wán quán bù tóng.
    In grammatical analysis, nouns and verbs have completely different functions.

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.

名míngname
词cíword

“名” contributes naming, and “词” means word, together referring to a naming word.

Characters in this word

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

名 puts 夕 (crescent moon) above 口 (mouth), showing a name spoken in the dark.

Open 名 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 詞; 词 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
言言yánspeech
Sound part声符shēngfú
司
司sī詞cí(r)
Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The traditional form 詞 uses 言, meaning speech, and 司 to show how it was pronounced; the simplified 词 is a shorthand, and its right side is not the historical sound part.

Open 词 →
Appears in
Language

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