The other day the word 火箭 (huǒjiàn) came up in my (Mandarin) Chinese lessons. It means rocket or literally “fire arrow”.
I knew that the first characters meant fire, but wasn’t sure about the second character. Once I knew that the word meant rocket, I guessed that the second character meant arrow or something similar. I was right.
One of the things I like about Chinese is that rather than borrowing words other languages, they often coin new words based on native roots, or borrow words from Japanese that are based on Chinese roots.
Other examples featuring the character 火 (huǒ), which means fire, flame, burn, anger or rage, include:
- 火车 [火車] (huǒchē) = train, (lit. “fire cart / vehicle”).
- 火印 (huǒyìn) = brand, branded mark (lit. “fire seal”)
- 火山 (huǒshān) = volcano (lit. “fire mountain” – should not be confused with a 山火 (shānhuǒ) = mountain fire, wildfire
- 火筷子 (huǒkuàizi) = fire tongs, hair curling tongs (lit. “fire chopsticks”).
- 火石 (huǒshí) = flint (lit. “fire stone”)
- 火药 (huǒyào) = gunpowder (lit. “fire medicine”)
- 火星 (huǒxīng) = (the planet) Mars, spark (lit. “fire star”) – not to be confused with 星火 (xīnghuǒ) = spark, meteor.
- 火星人 (huǒxīngrén) = Martian (lit. “fire star person”) – borrowed from Japanese 火星人 (kaseijin)
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The character 箭 (jiàn) means arrow and appears in words like:
- 射箭 (shèjiàn) = to shoot an arrow, to let loose an arrow; archery
- 弓箭 (gōngjiàn) = bow and arrow
- 弓箭手 (gōngjiànshǒu) = archer
- 箭猪 [箭豬] (jiànzhū) = porcupine (lit. “arrow pig”).
- 箭鱼 [箭魚] (jiànyú) = swordfish (lit. “arrow fish”).
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