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派对 (pài duì) — party (social gathering)

Definition

noun
party (social gathering)
Measure word · 场

Examples

  • 派对。
    Wǒ xià ge yuè yào jǔ bàn yí gè shēng rì pài duì.
    I'm going to throw a birthday party next month.
  • 派对，。
    Zhè ge pài duì lái le hěn duō rén, qì fen fēi cháng rè nao.
    A lot of people came to this party, and the atmosphere was very lively.
  • 派对。
    Wǒ men jué dìng zài bì yè hòu kāi yí gè pài duì qìng zhù.
    We decided to have a party after graduation to celebrate.

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.

派pài
对duì

The characters 派 对 carry no meaning of their own here; the word spells the English loan party.

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
水水shuǐwater; river
Sound part声符shēngfú
𠂢
𠂢𠂢派pài
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

派 is built from 水 (water/river) and 𠂢. 𠂢 gives the sound, and 水 was added later to tell the character apart from the older form.

Open 派 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 對; 对 is its simplified writing.

For the traditional form 對, the shape comes from an early drawing of 丵 (a digging tool), 土 (earth), and 又 (a hand); it may have meant developing land.

Open 对 →
Appears in
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