黑暗

Meanings

Etymology

The 9ᵗʰ-century Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang described 黑暗 (MC xok 'omH, “lit. black-dark”) as the name for “rhinoceros(-horn)” in the place Po-se (波斯 (Bōsī), “Persia”), in parallel to 白暗 (MC baek 'omH, “lit. white-dark”), the designation for “ivory”. Laufer (1914: 145) and Laufer (1967: 473) pointed out that these names cannot be Persian, but are Malayan in origin. Additionally, it is clear that neither the Malayan words for “rhinoceros-horn” and “ivory”, nor the words for “rhinoceros” and “elephant”, are implicated in these etymologies. It appears that these two Chinese words are corruptions of the colour names “black” and “white”, with which the local traders in Malaya at the time distinguished rhinoceros-horn and ivory. Laufer compared the former with Jarai [Term?] (hötam), Cebuano itom, Malay hitam, Javanese item, Tagalog itim, all meaning “black” (in Austronesian languages), and the latter with: Čam bauṅ, boṅ, or bhuṅ; Senoi biūg, other forms in the Sakei and Semang languages of Malakka biok, biäk, biēg, begiäk, bekuṅ, bekog; Alfur, Boloven, Kon tu, Kaseng, Lave, and Niah bok, Sedeng röboṅ, Stieng bōk (“white”); Bahnar bak (Mon bu), most of which are the Mon-Khmer words for “white” (proto-form *kɓɔɔk and *kbooʔ).

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Stroke order

Components

Components from cjk-decomp · MIT

Characters

Example sentences

• 不要一個人在黑暗中走。

  Don't walk alone after dark.

• 非洲曾經被稱為黑暗大陸。

  Africa was once called the Dark Continent.

• 我害怕一个人处在黑暗之中。

  I was scared to be alone in the dark.

• 他的黑色外套與黑暗融為一體。

  His black coat blended into the darkness.

• 我们的眼睛需要时间来适应黑暗。

  Our eyes take time to adjust to the dark.

• 汤姆让他的仆人们在黑暗下进餐。

  Tom made his servants eat in the dark.

Sentences from Tatoeba · CC-BY 2.0 FR

More examples & usage (AI)

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Related words