China is the huge country of Beijing, pandas and the Great Wall. Travel to China, made in China, the Chinese language.
It has the largest population of any country or the second largest depending on the year, and a written tradition running unbroken for over three thousand years. Mandarin is the official spoken language and the writing system is shared across dialects that are not mutually intelligible. Note that china also means porcelain, named after the country it came from.
1nounchinaA country in East Asia.
“China has about 1.4 billion people.”
2nounporcelainPorcelain tableware.
“She only uses her best china when guests come for dinner.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
china is a country, or porcelain.
The country's English name probably comes through Persian and Sanskrit from the Qin dynasty. The porcelain took the country's name, and china as tableware is a clipping of chinaware.
Built from
From clippings of attributive use of China, q.v., the country in East Asia. In reference to porcelain and porcelain objects, via clipping of chinaware and via this sense of Persian - چِینِی in Persia and India, which influenced the pronunciation (see below). In reference to medicine, via clipping of China root. In reference to flowers, via clipping of China rose. In reference to tea, via clipping of China tea. In Cockney slang, a clipping of china plate as a rhyme of mate (“friend”). In reference to drum cymbals, a clipping of China cymbal and as a genericization of a kind of
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA