新年快乐
Etymologically presents
Chinese New Year Etymologies
The year of the horse
Tea and ketchup, kowtows and tycoons: the words English borrowed from Chinese along the trade routes, and the stories behind the names of the twelve animals of the zodiac.
From the tea house to the table
Food and drink that travelled from Chinese into English.
- 1650s tea from Hokkien te Dutch traders bought their tea in Fujian, where it was te, and spread that word across most of Europe. Where tea travelled overland, the Mandarin and Cantonese chá went with it, giving Persian, Russian and Portuguese chá and English char. Read the full etymology →
- 1690s ketchup from Hokkien kê-tsiap Probably from a Hokkien word for a brine of pickled fish, perhaps by way of Malay kicap. The first English ketchups were made of mushrooms, walnuts or oysters; tomatoes came later. Read the full etymology →
- 1690s chopsticks from pidgin chop “quick” A pidgin English translation of Chinese kuàizi, “the quick ones”. Chop, “quick”, came from Cantonese, and survives in chop-chop. Read the full etymology →
- 1690s kumquat from Cantonese kam kwat The “golden orange”, in the Cantonese spoken around the trading port of Canton (Guangzhou). Read the full etymology →
- 1580s lychee from Chinese lìzhī Also spelled litchi, as early European writers heard it. The fruit came to the West through the southern Chinese ports. Read the full etymology →
- 1650s ginseng from Chinese rénshēn Rén means “man”: the forked root was likened to a human figure, and prized as a medicine for that reason. Read the full etymology →
- 1952 wok from Cantonese The Cantonese name of the round-bottomed pan, which reached English with the Chinese restaurants of the West. Read the full etymology →
- 1948 dim sum from Cantonese dim sam Usually explained as “touch the heart”: small dishes eaten with tea, little enough to please without filling. Read the full etymology →
- 1903 chow mein from Cantonese chaau mihn Simply “fried noodles”, one of the first Chinese dishes to be named on American menus. Read the full etymology →
Words that crossed the sea
Trade, ideas and the ways of the treaty ports.
- 1570s china from Persian chīnī “Chinese” Porcelain was China ware, “ware from China”, soon shortened to china. The country’s name probably goes back to the Qin dynasty, which unified China in the 3rd century BC. Read the full etymology →
- 1804 kowtow from Chinese kētóu “knock head” To kneel and touch the ground with the forehead, the bow required before the emperor. In English it soon came to mean any grovelling deference. Read the full etymology →
- 1857 tycoon from Japanese taikun “great lord” From Chinese dà “great” and jūn “lord”, by way of Japanese: the title by which foreigners knew the shogun. Lincoln’s secretaries jokingly called him the Tycoon, and business magnates followed. Read the full etymology →
- 1942 gung-ho from Chinese gōnghé “work together” The slogan of the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, adopted as a motto by Evans Carlson’s Marine Raiders in the Second World War. Enthusiasm, and then overenthusiasm, followed. Read the full etymology →
- 1550s typhoon from Arabic and Chinese, converging Two words met in this one: Arabic ṭūfān, which may itself go back to the Greek monster Typhon, and Cantonese tai fung, “big wind”. The sources disagree on how much each contributed. Read the full etymology →
- 1871 shanghai from the port of Shanghai American sailors’ slang: to drug or trick a man into serving on a ship, like one bound for the Far East, from which he might not soon return. Read the full etymology →
- 1795 chin-chin from Chinese qǐng qǐng “please, please” A polite greeting in pidgin English, which became a drinking toast. Read the full etymology →
- 1797 feng shui from Chinese fēng shuǐ “Wind and water”: the art of placing houses and graves in harmony with the forces of the landscape. Read the full etymology →
- 1966 kung fu from Chinese gōngfu Not originally a fighting art: gōngfu means skill achieved through effort and time, at anything. Read the full etymology →
- 1670s yin from Chinese yīn Yin was the shady side of a hill, yang the sunny one: the two complementary forces of Chinese philosophy. Read the full etymology →
The twelve animals
Each lunar year belongs to one of twelve animals, in this order. Here is where their English names come from.
- Next · 2032 rat Old English ræt. Words like it are found across Europe, and nobody is sure which language had it first; it may imitate the sound of gnawing.
- Next · 2033 ox Old English oxa. Its plural oxen keeps an old -en ending, like children; it is related to Sanskrit ukṣan, “bull”.
- Next · 2034 tiger Greek tígris, perhaps from an Iranian word for “arrow”, for the animal’s speed.
- Next · 2035 rabbit Late Middle English rabet, at first only the young; the grown animal was a coney until the 18th century.
- Next · 2036 dragon Greek drákōn, “serpent”, perhaps “the one with the deadly glance”, from a verb meaning “to see clearly”.
- Next · 2037 snake Old English snaca, from a root meaning “to crawl, creep”.
- This year · 2026 horse Old English hors, of uncertain origin; it may be related to Latin currere “to run”.
- Next · 2027 goat Old English gāt was the she-goat; the male was a bucca, a buck. The Chinese 羊 covers sheep too, so the year has both names.
- Next · 2028 monkey Perhaps from Moneke, the son of Martin the Ape in a Low German version of the tale of Reynard the Fox.
- Next · 2029 rooster American, from the bird that roosts, used from the late 18th century by people who preferred not to say cock.
- Next · 2030 dog Late Old English docga, a rare word of unknown origin for a powerful breed, which went on to replace hound.
- Next · 2031 pig Middle English pigge, at first only a young pig, of unknown origin; the older word was swine.