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Why does 东西 mean "thing" when it literally means "east-west"?
Chinese
东西
Pinyin
Explanation
One popular theory: market stalls in ancient cities ran east-west, so you went to buy 东西 — literally "east-west" — and the phrase became the everyday word for "stuff" or "things."
At a glance
- Category
- Language
- Chinese
- 东西
- Pinyin
- dōngxi
- Tags
- vocabulary, etymology, markets
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