大成 (dà chéng) — great achievement, great completion; (honorific…

Definition

Cultural/Classical term meaning 'great accomplishment or synthesis'. Best known as the epithet for Confucius — his temple hall is 大成殿.

noun

great achievementgreat completion(honorific) epithet for Confucius

大成，著。
Tā yì shēng zhuī qiú xué shù dà chéng, wǎn nián zhōng yú wán chéng le zhè bù jù zhù.
He pursued great scholarly achievement all his life, and in his later years finally completed this magnum opus.
阜大成。
Qū fù de dà chéng diàn shì jì niàn kǒng zǐ de zhòng yào jiàn zhù.
The Dacheng Hall in Qufu is an important building commemorating Confucius.
大成，。
Zhè běn shū jí zhū jiā dà chéng, duì hòu shì yǐng xiǎng shēn yuǎn.
This book synthesizes the great achievements of various schools, exerting a profound influence on later generations.

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.

成chéngcompletion; achievement

大 'great' and 成 'completion' picture a great achievement.

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.

Meaning part形符xíngfú

Sound part声符shēngfú

丁

丁dīng成chéng

Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

成 puts 戊, a weapon, beside 丁, which gives the sound. The weapon part relates to protection, as in the old sense of city walls.