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谋杀 (móu shā) — to murder, to assassinate

Definition

Means deliberate, planned killing — stronger than plain 杀, which is just 'to kill'. Legal/crime vocabulary; you will mostly see it in 谋杀案, 谋杀罪, or as a noun.

verb
to murderto assassinate

Examples

  • 。
    Jǐng fāng zhèng zài diào chá zhè qǐ móu shā àn.
    The police are investigating this murder case.
  • 。
    Tā yīn móu shā zuì bèi pàn le zhōng shēn jiān jìn.
    He was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.
  • 谋杀。
    Xiǎo shuō lǐ miáo xiě le yì chǎng jīng xīn cè huà de móu shā.
    The novel describes a carefully planned murder.

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.

谋móuplanning
杀shākilling

谋 gives planning and 杀 gives killing, so it means to kill by planning.

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.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 謀; 谋 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
言言yán
Sound part声符shēngfú
某
某mǒu謀móu
Same sound today

The traditional form 謀 uses 言 to show it relates to speech and 某 to show its sound; the simplified 谋 is a later shorthand.

Open 谋 →

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 殺; 杀 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 殺 comes from an old drawing of a boar impaled in the head, with 人 and 又 added to show a person doing the killing; the simplified 杀 is a later abbreviation.

Open 杀 →
Appears in
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