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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

成千上萬

/ʈ͡ʂʰɤŋ³⁵ t͡ɕʰi̯ɛn⁵⁵ ʂɑŋ⁵¹⁻⁵³ wän⁵¹/
by the thousands and tens of thousands; untold numbers; innumerable; thousands upon thousands
  • 成千上万
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Origin

The phrase is formed from four characters: 成, 千, 上, and 萬. The character 成 means to succeed, accomplish, achieve, finish, or complete. It contains the semantic component 戊, the fifth of the ten heavenly stems, and the phonetic component 丁, the fourth of the ten heavenly stems.

千 means thousand. It is composed of the semantic component 一 (one) and the phonetic component 人 (man, person, or people). The character 上 refers to the upper part, a high position, or up. The character 萬 has an original form of 蠆／虿 (chài, “scorpion”).

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

成千上萬是由四個漢字組成的詞彙。其中「成」字包含表示意義的成分「戊」（十天干中的第五個），並以「丁」（十天干中的第四個）作為表示聲音的成分，其本義為成功、完成、達成或結束。「千」字則由表示意義的「一」與表示聲音的「人」組成，意指一千。「上」字代表上方、高位或向上。「萬」字的原始字形為「蠆」或「虿」（蠍子）。

根據《國語辭典》，這個詞是用來形容數量很多。透過這些字元的組合，該詞彙用來描述成千上萬、無數或極其大量的數量。

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

Lineage

  • characterChinese成 “to succeed; to accomplish; to achieve; to finish; to complete”
    • meaningChinese戊 “the fifth of the ten heavenly stems”
    • soundChinese丁 “the fourth of the ten heavenly stems”
  • characterChinese千 “thousand”
    • meaningChinese一 “one”
    • soundChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
  • characterChinese上 “upper part; high position; up”
  • characterChinese萬 “original form of 蠆／虿 (chài, “scorpion”)”
Wiktionary etymology text

No etymology text yet. The graph shows what is known from the sources.

Meanings

phrase
  1. by the thousands and tens of thousands; untold numbers; innumerable; thousands upon thousands

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 形容數量很多。 例：食物的殘渣引來成千上萬的螞蟻。

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

Sources

  • etymagent (local gemma4:26b) — Generated
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0