大城 (dài chéng) — major metropolis, great city; greater city (cit…

Definition

Literary term for a 'great city / metropolis' — more formal and grander than 城市 ('city'). It is rarely used in everyday speech.

noun

major metropolisgreat citygreater city (city and its environs)

Measure word · 座

大城。
Shàng hǎi shì yí zuò guó jì huà dài chéng.
Shanghai is an international metropolis.
大城。
Tā cóng xiǎo chéng shì bān dào le dài chéng.
He moved from a small town to a big city.
大城。
Zhè zuò dài chéng de jiāo tōng fēi cháng fā dá.
The transportation in this great city is very developed.

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.

大 'big' and 城 'city' point to a major city or its greater area.

Characters in this word

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

The form 大 is a picture of a person standing and facing forward, not of someone stretching their arms.

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

土成城

Meaning part形符xíngfú

土土tǔsoil

Sound part声符shēngfú

成

Same sound today

城 pairs 土 (soil) with 成 as a sound part, because city walls were originally made of stamped earth.