突尼斯 (Tū ní sī) — Tunisia (country); Tunis (city)

Definition

A single Chinese word covers both the country Tunisia and its capital Tunis (cities usually get 市: 突尼斯市). This is common for foreign country/city names that share a spelling.

noun
Tunisia (country)Tunis (city)

Examples

  • 突尼斯。
    Tū ní sī Shì fēi zhōu de yí gè guó jiā.
    Tunisia is a country in Africa.
  • 突尼斯。
    Wǒ zài Tū ní sī shì zhù le sān tiān.
    I stayed in Tunis for three days.
  • 突尼斯。
    Tū ní sī Yǒu hěn duō lǚ yóu jǐng diǎn.
    Tunisia has many tourist attractions.

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.

突tū
尼ní
斯sī

The characters 突尼斯 are used only to spell the foreign name Tunisia/Tunis; they carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

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

突 shows 犬 (dog) under 穴 (cave; den), as a dog suddenly coming out of a den.

Open 突 →

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

The shape draws one person sitting on or leaning against another person, giving the sense of stopping close to someone.

Open 尼 →

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Open 斯 →

Browse more HSK 7-9 words or search the full 43,000-word dictionary.