大革命 (dà gé mìng) — great revolution

Definition

noun

great revolution

大革命18。
Fǎ guó dà gé mìng fā shēng zài 18 shì jì mò.
The French Revolution took place at the end of the 18th century.
大革命。
Zhè chǎng dà gé mìng gǎi biàn le zhěng gè guó jiā de mìng yùn.
This great revolution changed the fate of the entire country.
大革命。
Tā xiě le yì běn guān yú dà gé mìng de shū.
He wrote a book about the great revolution.

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.

革命revolution

动宾Verb + object

大革命 means a great 革命, with 革 as change and 命 as mandate.

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.

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

革 is drawn as a stretched animal hide, with the upper part as the head and the lower part as the tail and legs.

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

口口kǒumouth

Sound part声符shēngfú

令

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

命 combines 口, a mouth, with 令, which gives the sound.