Chinese

中國

Zhōngguó
China (a country in Asia; capital: Beijing)
  • TOCFL 1
  • 中国

Etymology graph

  • inherited
  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Etymology 1

Earliest attested on the Western Zhou bronze vessel He zun. See Names of China#Zhongguo.

Etymology 2

Orthographic borrowing from Japanese 中(ちゅう)国(ごく) (Chūgoku), from Chinese 中國 (MC trjuwng kwok, “the central part of a country”).

Etymology 3

Semantic loan from Sanskrit मध्यदेशे m sg (madhyadeśe, locative, literally “in the Middle Country”) (Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā; see Karashima, 2010) or मध्येषु जनपदेषु m pl (madhyeṣu janapadeṣu, “in [the] central countries”) (Abhidharmakośakārikā); as opposed to the 邊地／边地 (biāndì, “borderlands; frontiers”), from Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit प्रत्यन्तिम (pratyantima) / प्रत्यन्त (pratyanta) or Pali paccantima. Cognate to the Pali majjhimesu janapadesu (locative, literally “in the middlemost countries”) in the text parallel to the Ekottara Āgama in the Pali Canon.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • characterChinese中 “middle; center”
  • characterChinese國 “country; nation; nation-state; kingdom”
    • meaningChinese囗 “box, enclosure”
    • soundChinese或 “or; either ... or ... (used to list alternatives)”
      • meaningChinese戈 “dagger-axe (an ancient Chinese weapon similar to a halberd)”
      • soundChinese員 “member”
        • soundChinese〇 “circle”
        • meaningChinese鼎 “ding (ancient large, three-legged bronze cauldron for cooking or sacrificial rituals)”
  • borrowedJapanese中
  • semantic loanSanskritमध्यदेशे

Related: Pali majjhimesu janapadesu

Sources