Words
The one Chinese character 胡 was used for many hu words besides the Hu surname.
In Classical Chinese, hu 胡 meant: "dewlap; wattle" and was a variant Chinese character for "how; why; what" (he 何), "long-lasting; far-reaching" (xia 遐), "part of a dagger-axe", hu- in "butterfly" (hudie 蝴蝶), and "Northern Barbarians".
In Modern Standard Mandarin, hu 胡 means: "foreign" (e.g., huqin 胡琴 "two-stringed bowed instruments"), "recklessly; irrelevantly" (hushuo 胡說 "talk nonsense; drivel"), "dewlap", (literary) "why; when; how", "Surname", and (historical) "non-Han peoples in the northwest" (Huren 胡人 "the Northern tribes"); or 胡 is a variant character for hu 鬍 (huzi 胡子/鬍子"moustache; beard; whiskers; bandit") and hu 衚 (hutong 胡同/衚衕 "lane; alley"). Compare Honghuzi 紅胡子 (literally "Red Beards") "bandits in the Sino-Russian borderlands".
Read more about this topic: Hu (surname)
Famous quotes containing the word words:
“Those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies, that daily flow
From all her words and actions, mixed with love
And sweet compliance, which declare unfeigned
Union of mind, or in us both one soul.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“But the words aren’t good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
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—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)