shén

what

什 — the 'what' question word

什 was originally a word for 'a group of ten people,' but it was borrowed for its sound to write the question word shén in 什么. The components no longer carry the 'what' meaning directly — the grammaticalization happened through phonetic borrowing.

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PersonSemantic
TenSemantic

Words with 什

都什么年代了

dōu shén me nián dài le

What decade are you living in?

阿什哈巴德

ā shén hā bā dé

Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan

阿什哈巴特

ā shí hā bā tè

Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan (Tw)

阿什拉维

ā shén lā wéi

surname Ashrawi

阿图什

ā tú shí

Atush or Artux city and county in Qizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang 克孜勒蘇柯爾克孜自治州|克孜勒苏柯尔克孜自治州[Ke4 zi1 le4 su1 Ke1 er3 ke4 zi1 Zi4 zhi4 zhou1]

阿图什市

ā tú shí shì

Atush or Artux city in Qizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang 克孜勒蘇柯爾克孜自治州|克孜勒苏柯尔克孜自治州[Ke4 zi1 le4 su1 Ke1 er3 ke4 zi1 Zi4 zhi4 zhou1]

雅什

yǎ shí

fine verse

雅诺什

yǎ nuò shí

János (Hungarian name)

马拉喀什

mǎ lā kā shí

Marrakech (city in Morocco)

鸠摩罗什

jiū mó luó shí

Kumarajiva c. 334-413, Buddhist monk and translator of Zen texts

什一奉献

shí yī fèng xiàn

tithing

什刹海

shí chà hǎi

Shichahai, scenic area of northwest Beijing with three lakes

More characters with 亻