米其林 (mǐ qí lín) — Michelin (tire company); Michelin star (restaur…

Definition

Brand name of the French tire company Michelin; in food talk, '米其林星' refers to its famous restaurant star rating.

noun

Michelin (tire company)Michelin star (restaurant rating)

米其林。
Zhè jiā cān tīng huò dé le sān kē mǐ qí lín xīng.
This restaurant was awarded three Michelin stars.
米其林。
Wǒ de chē yòng de shì mǐ qí lín lún tāi.
My car uses Michelin tires.
米其林。
mǐ qí lín Zhǐ nán měi nián dōu huì gēng xīn.
The Michelin Guide is updated every year.

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.

The characters carry no meaning of their own here; the word transliterates the brand name Michelin.

Sound-only characters

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

米 is a picture of rice kernels without husk, with the horizontal stroke as a bamboo sieve. It is unrelated to similar-looking grain characters.

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

The modern form 其 comes from an early drawing of a basket, with a stand added underneath.

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.