密西西比 (Mì xī xī bǐ) — Mississippi (state or river)

Definition

noun
Mississippi (state or river)

Examples

  • 密西西比。
    Wǒ míng nián xiǎng qù Mì xī xī bǐ lǚ yóu.
    I want to travel to Mississippi next year.
  • 密西西比。
    Mì xī xī bǐ Shì měi guó nán bù de yí gè zhōu.
    Mississippi is a state in the southern United States.
  • 密西西比。
    Mì xī xī bǐ Hé shì měi guó zuì cháng de hé liú zhī yī.
    The Mississippi River is one of the longest rivers in the United States.

Origin

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.

密mì
西xī
西xī
比bǐ

The characters in 密西西比 only spell the foreign name Mississippi; they carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

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
山山shānmountain
Sound part声符shēngfú
宓
宓mì密mì
Same sound today

密 pairs 山 (mountain) with 宓 (mì), which gives the pronunciation, to picture something hidden in the mountains, hence secret.

Open 密 →

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Open 西 →

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Open 西 →

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

  • 匕匕bǐ
  • 匕匕bǐ

比 is two 匕 placed side by side. Chu Wan-li treats both as sound parts, while an old reading takes the side-by-side arrangement as putting things next to each other.

Open 比 →
Appears in
Geography & Landforms

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