耶稣 (yē sū) — Jesus | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

noun

Jesus

耶稣？
Nǐ tīng shuō guò yē sū ma?
Have you heard of Jesus?
耶稣。
Hěn duō jiào táng lǐ dōu yǒu yē sū de huà xiàng.
Many churches have paintings of Jesus.
耶稣。
yē sū Shì jī dū jiào de zhòng yào rén wù.
Jesus is an important figure in Christianity.

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 耶 and 稣 together spell the name Jesus; they carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 穌; 稣 is its simplified writing.

魚禾穌

Meaning part形符xíngfú

Sound part声符shēngfú

魚

魚yú穌

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

The traditional form 穌 pairs 魚, which gives the sound, with 禾; the simplified 稣 is a later shorthand.

Appears in