西
Meanings
CC-CEDICT
- 1.west
- 1.the West
- 2.abbr. for Spain 西班牙[Xī bān yá]
- 3.Spanish
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Wiktionary
- 1.west; western; occidental
- 2.western paradise
- 3.Used in transcription.
- 4.spin (noun)
- 5.to spin; to cause to spin
- 6.carrying spin
- 7.to deviate from a path due to some force
- 8.to hit
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Etymology
The oracle-bone forms of 西 (OC *sˤən) fall into two types: open-topped and closed-topped. The open-topped type is found only in periods I–II, especially in the Bin and Chu groups; later scripts inherit the closed-topped type. The open-topped form has been interpreted as a bird's nest, possibly related to 栖 (OC *sˤəj) (“to perch; to roost”). The later closed-topped form may be related to 囟 (OC *sənh): in the Zhouyuan oracle-bone inscriptions, 囟 (xìn) is used for 西 (xī). The word is traditionally reconstructed to have a /*s/-initial in Old Chinese, e.g. /*sɯːl/ in Zhengzhang (2003). However, recent scholarship has suggested that the Old Chinese initial should instead be reconstructed as /*s-nˤ/, one of the reasons being 西 appears to be the phonetic in 迺 (nǎi), the archaic graphic variant of 乃 (OC *nɯːʔ). The new reconstruction, /*s-nˤər/ in Baxter and Sagart (2014), also accounts for how 西 can be the phonetic in 哂 (shěn, “to smile”). For more information, see Sagart (2004), Baxter and Sagart (2014) and Nohara (2018). In light of the new construction with the initial consonant cluster /*s-nˤ/, the possibilities of the etymology of 西, aside from being cognate with 棲／栖 (qī, “to roost; to rest”) (B-S OC /*s-nˤər/), include: * Related to Tibetan ནེར་བ (ner ba, “to sink; to fall gradually”) (Unger, 1990). * Related to Chepang नेलःसा (nelʔ‑, “to go down; to sink”), which may be the same etymon as the Written Tibetan word above (Schuessler, 2007). * Related to the root 尼 (nǐ, “to stop”) (OC /*nˤərʔ/ for intransitive form, /*nˤərʔ-s/ for transitive form in Baxter and Sagart (2014)). * Related to Tibetan མནལ (mnal, “sleep”) and Burmese နား (na:, “to rest; to stop for a while”) (Hill, 2019). * An Austroasiatic nominal n-infix derivative from the root "go down", as in Old Mon cnis (“ghat”) < Old Mon cis (“to go down”) , with Proto-Austroasiatic *tsn- > Proto-Sinitic *sn-. If true, then this etymon literally means "the place where one goes down to" > Mon "ghat" > OC "nest, west" and its base form is 濟 (OC *ʔsliːls) via Austroasiatic (Schuessler, 2007).
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Stroke order
Components
Components from cjk-decomp · MIT
Example sentences
給我東西吃。
Bring me something to eat.
你穿點東西。
Put on some clothes.
你穿點東西。
Get dressed.
給我點東西吃。
Give me something to eat.
你欠我點東西。
You owe me something.
你要用這東西嗎？
Will you use this?
Sentences from Tatoeba · CC-BY 2.0 FR
More examples & usage (AI)
Synonyms
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Derived terms
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA