花童 (huā tóng) — flower girl or page boy (child attendant at a wedding)

Definition

花童 is the child attendant in a Western-style wedding — usually a girl ('flower girl') who scatters petals, or sometimes a young boy ('page boy') who carries the rings.

noun
flower girl or page boy (child attendant at a wedding)
Measure word · 个

Examples

  • ，花童，。
    Hūn lǐ shàng, liǎng gè huā tóng zǒu zài zuì qián miàn, sā zhe huā bàn.
    At the wedding, two flower girls walked at the very front, scattering petals.
  • 花童，。
    huā tóng Chuān zhuó bái sè xiǎo lǐ fú, yàng zi kě ài jí le.
    The flower girl wore a little white dress and looked extremely cute.
  • 花童，。
    Xīn láng de zhí zi dāng huā tóng, fù zé dì sòng jiè zhi.
    The groom's nephew served as a page boy, responsible for delivering the rings.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

花huāflower
童tóngchild

The idea of 花 and 童 gives a child attendant at a wedding, often with flowers.

Characters in this word

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
艹Written in full as艸cǎograss; plant
Sound part声符shēngfú
化
化huà花
Same sound today

花 pairs 艹 (grass; plant) with 化, which gives the sound.

Open 花 →

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

  • 䇂䇂䇂chisel
  • 見見jiànkneeling person with a huge eye

The form 童 comes from a pairing of 䇂 (a chisel) with 見 (a kneeling person with a huge eye), depicting a person having an eye gouged out.

Open 童 →

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