nanjing
/nænˈd͡ʒɪŋ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.00 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A major subprovincial city, the provincial capital of Jiangsu, China, on the lower Yangtze; a former capital of China.
name
Synonym of Jiangnan, Nanzhili, Liangjiang, etc. as imperial Chinese provinces or viceroyalties administered from Nanjing.
Informal
Example Sentences
- "That Riuer of Nanquin which I called (Yamſu or) Ianſu, the ſonne of the Sea, goeth Northward to Nanquin, and then returning ſomewhat Southward, runneth into the Sea with great force; fortie myles from which it paſſeth by Nanquin. And that from hence to Pequin there might bee paſſage by Riuers, the Kings of China haue deriued a large Channell from this to another Riuer, called the Yellow Riuer, ſuch being the colour of that troubled water. This is the other famous Riuer of that Kingdome, in greatneſſe and note, which ariſesth without the Kingdome to the Weſt, out of the Hill Cunlun, conjectured to bee the ſame whence Ganges ariſeth, or one neere to it."
- "For the first time on Saturday, China held a national day of remembrance on the 77th anniversary of Japanese atrocities committed in the city of Nanjing in the run-up to World War II. President Xi Jinping led the commemorations in front of a crowd of some 10,000 people, among whom were survivors or relatives of victims of the "Rape of Nanking," a six-week reign of terror during which the Imperial Japanese Army carried out mass killings and rapes."
- "Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) chairman Morris Chang will sign a contract with the government of the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing to carry out the largest Taiwanese investment in China, Taiwan's Central News Agency (CNA) reported today."
Etymology
The atonal Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 南京 (Nánjīng), composed of 南 (“south, southern”) and 京 (jīng, “capital”), distinguishing it from Beijing to the north, and first applied informally during the reign of the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, who preferred to rule from Beijing but was obliged to treat Nanjing as a secondary capital by the dynastic injunctions of his father the Hongwu Emperor. The name continued a practice of several preceding dynasties—especially those of nomadic conquerers from the north such as the Jin and Liao—of maintaining a number of separate capitals designated by their cardinal directions.
Word Breakdown
- Root: -, 南京