麒麟
Meanings
CC-CEDICT
- 1.(Chinese mythology) qilin
- 2.(old) giraffe
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Wiktionary
- 1.qilin (propitious mythological beast) (Classifier: 隻／只 m c mn)
- 2.outstanding person; man of ability
- 3.giraffe (ruminant of the genus Giraffa) (Classifier: 隻／只 mn)
- 4.Qilin District (district in Qujing, Yunnan province, China)
- 5.Qilin (a town in Zongyang, Tongling, Anhui, China)
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Etymology
Old Chinese pronunciation for this word was *g(ɯ)-rin (Zhengzhang), and in pre-Qin times the beast was also referred to as * 麟 (OC *rin), * 麐 (OC *m·rin, *m·rins), * 𪊓, or * 蔽 (OC *peds), the last two having been attested in the oracle bone script already. There is much debate as to what animal the qilin beast was; some maintain that the qilin was a beast only found in mythology, even though it may have been based on some animal in pre-historic times, and some argue that the qilin was in reality the river deer, the ox or cow, or the Indian rhinoceros (Wang, 2009). Janhunen (2011) tentatively compares 麒麟 (OC *ɡɯ rin) to a Northeast Asian etymon *kalimV, which denotes either "whale" or "mammoth"; however, he cautiously remarks that "[t]he formal and semantic similarity between *kilin < *gilin ~ *gïlin 'unicorn' and *kalimV 'whale' (but also Samoyedic *kalay- 'mammoth') is sufficient to support, though perhaps not confirm, the hypothesis of an etymological connection". He also notes a possible connection between Old Chinese and Mongolian (*)kers ~ (*)keris ~ (*)kiris "rhinoceros" (> Khalkha Mongolian хирс (xirs)).
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Stroke order
Components
Components from cjk-decomp · MIT
Characters
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Synonyms
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Derived terms
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