奥林匹亚 (Aò lín pǐ yà) — Olympia (ancient Greek city)

Definition

noun

Olympia (ancient Greek city)

奥林匹亚。
Wǒ cān guān le xī là de Aò lín pǐ yà yí zhǐ.
I visited the ruins of Olympia in Greece.
奥林匹亚。
Aò lín pǐ yà Shì gǔ dài ào yùn huì de fā yuán dì.
Olympia is the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games.
奥林匹亚。
Zhè ge bó wù guǎn shōu cáng le xǔ duō Aò lín pǐ yà chū tǔ de wén wù.
This museum has collected many artifacts unearthed from Olympia.

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.

奥林匹亚 only spell the name Olympia and carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

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

木木林

林 is made of two 木 (tree) placed side by side, showing many trees together, hence a forest.

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

乙

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

The form 匹 is often explained as 石 (rock) with 乙 giving the sound, but its original picture is uncertain.

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 亞; 亚 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 亞 likely shows an overhead view of a construction, perhaps a 亞-shaped tomb. Its later simplified form 亚 is just a shorthand.

Appears in