Words of Chinese origin have entered European languages, including English. Most of these were direct loanwords from various varieties of Chinese. However, Chinese words have also entered indirectly via other languages, particularly Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese, that have all used Chinese characters at some point and contain a large number of Chinese loanwords.
English words of Chinese origin usually have different characteristics, depending on precisely how the words encountered the West. Despite the increasingly widespread use of Standard Chinese—based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin—among Chinese people, English words based on Mandarin are comparatively few.
Chinese vocabulary has spread to the West by means such as:
Though all these following terms originated from China, the spelling of the English words depends on the direct point of contact and borrowing, as well as which transliteration scheme is typically used.
| English | Direct origin | Word | Transliteration | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bok choy | Cantonese | A Chinese cabbage: lit. 'white vegetable' | |||
| Brainwash | Semantic borrowing | A calque of Chinese, consisting of the characters and . A term first used by the People's Volunteer Army during the Korean War, then picked up by the American media. It may refer to a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas; or persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship. The term "brainwashing" came into the mainstream English language after Western media sources first utilized the term to describe the attitudes of POWs returning from the Korean War.[1] | |||
| Cha | Cantonese | tea, see 'tea' below | |||
| Char siu | Cantonese | lit. fork roasted | |||
| Cheongsam | Cantonese | lit. 'long clothes', popularly used during the 19th and early 20th centuries | |||
| Chin chin, chin-chin | Mandarin | lit. 'please', 'invite', an exclamation used to express good wishes before drinking—cf. Mandarin, Sino-Japanese . While occasionally used in American English, chin-chin is an informal and outdated British English usage, for instance, the TV sitcom As Time Goes By.[2] | |||
| China | Mandarin | or | Via Latin Latin: Sina, Persian Persian: چین, and Sanskrit Sanskrit: चीन ; ultimately either from the name of the or state | ||
| Chop chop | Cantonese | lit. 'hurry', 'urgent' | |||
| Chopsticks | Pidgin | from Chinese Pidgin English chop chop. | |||
| Chop suey | Cantonese | 'mixed pieces' | |||
| Chow | Cantonese | From meaning 'cook', perhaps based on Cantonese. lit. 'to stir fry' | |||
| Chow chow | Cantonese | any of a breed of heavy-coated blocky dogs of Chinese origin | |||
| Chow mein | Cantonese (Taishanese) | lit. 'stir fried noodle', from initial Chinese immigrants from Taishan came to the United States | |||
| Confucius | Jesuit Latinization | Latinization of 'Master Kong' | |||
| Cumshaw | Hokkien (Amoy) | feeling gratitude | |||
| Dim sum, Dim sim | Cantonese | lit. '(slightly) touches the heart, skimming the heart, igniting the heart', generally an idiom meaning 'desserts, pastry (accomponied to green tea), light refreshments' | |||
| Fan-tan | Cantonese | 'take turns scattering' | |||
| Feng shui | Mandarin | from and, denotes some form of aesthetic balance, generally in rooms or objects | |||
| Foo dog | Mandarin | Refers to the statues of lions that serve as guardians of Buddhist temples: combination of and 'dog', due to the statues resembling dogs | |||
| Ginkgo | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 銀杏 | From Japanese or Japanese: ginnan | ||
| Ginseng | Hokkien | From the name of the plant: some say the word came via the Japanese pronunciation, though Japanese: 人参 now means 'carrot' in Japanese, while the modern word for 'ginseng' is Japanese: 朝鮮人參|lit=Korean carrot|label=none. | |||
| Go | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 圍棋 | Japanese name for the Chinese board game, cf. Mandarin . | ||
| Guanxi | Mandarin | lit. 'relationship', refers to such in Chinese culture—occasionally a reference to nepotism or cronyism in Chinese business and bureaucracy | |||
| Gung-ho | Mandarin | Short for | |||
| Gweilo | Cantonese | Literally 'ghost guy', used as a common slur for Westerners. Absent modifiers, it refers to white people and has a history of deprecatory and pejorative use, though it has been argued that it has since acquired a more neutral connotation. | |||
| Gyoza | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 餃子 | From Chinese . In English, refers to the fried dumpling style, as opposed to the style boiled in water. | ||
| Hanfu | Mandarin | lit. 'Han clothing': traditional Chinese clothes, includes several varieties for both men and women. | |||
| Har gow | Cantonese | 'shrimp dumpling' | |||
| Hoisin | Cantonese | 'seafood' | |||
| Junzi | Mandarin | lit. 'person of high stature'; translatable as "respectable person" or simply "gentleman" | |||
| Kanji | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 漢字 | Name for Chinese characters within Japanese, cf. Mandarin . | ||
| Kaolin | Mandarin | lit. 'high mountain peak', the name of a village or suburb of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi, the site of a mine from which kaolin clay was taken to make the fine porcelain produced in Jingde.[3] | |||
| Keemun | Cantonese | tea from Qimen | |||
| Ketchup | Hokkien (Amoy)[4] | In the 17th century, the Chinese mixed a concoction of pickled fish and spices, called or in the Amoy dialect, whose meaning refers to the brine of pickled fish or shellfish . By the early 18th century, the sauce had made it to the Malay peninsula, where it was later discovered by English explorers. That word then gradually evolved into the English word "ketchup", and was taken to the American colonies by English settlers. | |||
| Koan | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 公案 | cf. Mandarin | ||
| Kowtow | Cantonese | 'knock head' | |||
| Kumquat, cumquat | Cantonese | 'tangerine' | |||
| Kung fu | Cantonese | lit. 'efforts', used in English to collectively describe Chinese martial arts | |||
| Lo mein | Cantonese | 'scooped noodle' | |||
| Longan | Cantonese | lit. 'dragon's eye' | |||
| Long time no see | Semantic borrowing from Mandarin | ||||
| Loquat | Cantonese | Archaic name for the fruit | |||
| Lychee | Cantonese | twigs of cat-tail like grass | |||
| Mao-tai, moutai | Mandarin | 茅台酒 | liquor from Maotai, Guizhou | ||
| Mahjong | Cantonese | sparrow checkmate, short for 'hemp sparrow warfare, hemp sparrow being the term for house sparrow, and sparrow warfare (麻雀戰, 麻雀战) a form of guerilla warfare tactics. | |||
| Monsoon | Cantonese | 'full of water' | |||
| Mu shu | Mandarin | 'wood shredded pork' | |||
| Nankeen | Mandarin | The name for city, sometimes used in English to refer to the durable, buff-colored cotton cloth originally produced there | |||
| Semantic borrowing | , | Calque,[5] though also possibly a calque of Mandarin . | |||
| Nunchuk | Hokkien (Taiwan, Fujian) | , | Via Okinawan Japanese, lit. 'pair of joined sticks, double jointed sticks' | ||
| Oolong | Hokkien (Amoy) | 'dark dragon' | |||
| Pai gow | Cantonese | lit. 'row of nine', 'line of nine' | |||
| Paper tiger | Semantic borrowing | Calque of an idiom referring to something or someone whose claims or appearances of threat or power are paper-thin, actually being ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge. Became well known internationally by its use by Mao Zedong to refer to his against his political opponents, particularly the American government. | |||
| Pekin | Cantonese | From an older romanization of the Cantonese reading of Beijing | |||
| Pidgin | Mandarin | lit. 'naughty respect language, case-hardened ('thick-skinned') respect language' | |||
| Pinyin | Mandarin | 'put together sounds', 'spelled-out sounds' | |||
| Pekoe | Hokkien (Amoy) | 'white downy hair' | |||
| Pongee | Cantonese | lit. 'our own loom', 'homespun', a kind of thin silk | |||
| Pu'er, puerh | Mandarin | Named after a city | |||
| Qi, ch'i | Mandarin | Energy of an object or person, lit. 'air', 'spirit'. | |||
| Qipao | Mandarin | ||||
| Ramen | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 拉麵 | cf. Mandarin | ||
| Rickshaw | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 人力車 | Japanese neologism, (c. 1887) composed of semantic elements, and . | ||
| Sampan | Cantonese | ||||
| Shanghai | Mandarin | The city name, used in English as a verb meaning 'to put someone aboard a ship by trickery or intoxication', or generally 'to put someone in a bad situation by trickery'. From an old practice of deceitful acquiring sailors for voyages to Shanghai | |||
| Shantung | Mandarin | The Wade-Giles romanization of the province's name, used in English to refer to a wild silk fabric, usually undyed. | |||
| Shaolin | Mandarin | ||||
| Shar pei | Cantonese | 'sand skin' | |||
| Shih tzu | Taiwanese Mandarin | lit. 'lion child dog', Chinese lion | |||
| Shogun | Sino-Japanese | lit. 'military general', the full Japanese title was Japanese: 征夷大将軍|Seii Taishōgun|lit=generalissimo who overcomes the barbarians|label=none | |||
| Siu mai | Cantonese | pork dumplings, lit. 'to cook and sell' | |||
| Sifu | Cantonese | 'master' | |||
| Souchong | Cantonese | 'small kind of tea | |||
| Soy | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 醬油 | cf. Mandarin | ||
| Struggle session | Semantic calque from Mandarin | According to Lin Yutang, the expression comes from and, so the whole expression conveys the message of 'inciting spirited judgment and fighting'. It was often shortened to .[''[[Wikipedia:Citation needed|citation needed]]]The term refers to a phenomenon especially prevalent during the Cultural Revolution, where public sessions were ostensibly held for the benefit the target, intending to eliminate counterrevolutionary, reactionary thinking.[''[[Wikipedia:Citation needed|citation needed]]] | |||
| Tai chi | Mandarin | 太極 | From the Wade-Giles romanization of taijiquan (i.e., "tai chi chüan"), meaning 'great ultimate boxing' | ||
| Tai-pan | Cantonese | equivalent to "big shot" | |||
| Tangram | Compound word | from Tang + English gram | |||
| Tao, Dao | Mandarin | 'way', path' | |||
| Tea | Hokkien | In most European languages, where the word resembles te, tea generally originated in the Amoy port. The other common word for tea worldwide, usually in places where tea generally came via the Silk Road, derives from the Mandarin pronunciation with the same Old Chinese etymology. | |||
| Tofu | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 豆腐 | cf. Mandarin | ||
| Tong | Cantonese | ||||
| Tung oil | Cantonese | ||||
| Tycoon | Sino-Japanese | 'great nobleman' | |||
| Typhoon | Hokkien (Taiwanese),[6] Cantonese, or Mandarin | lit. 'wind coming from Taiwan', usually in contemperary Taiwanese, cf. Cantonese | |||
| Wok | Cantonese | ||||
| Wonton | Cantonese | homophone in Cantonese with the original, cf. Mandarin, lit. 'cloud swallow', describing its shape | |||
| Wushu | Mandarin | ||||
| Wuxia | Mandarin | ||||
| Yamen | Mandarin | 'court' | |||
| Yen | Cantonese | Craving, usually in reference to opium addition, lit. 'addiction' | |||
| Yen | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 圓 | cf. Mandarin, lit. 'round', 'name of currency unit' | ||
| Yin yang | Mandarin | meaning 'feminine', 'dark' and meaning 'masculine', 'bright' | |||
| Yuanfen | Mandarin, Vietnamese | lit. 'fateful coincidence'—similar conceptually to karma, but interactive instead of individualized, predestination without divine implications | |||
| Zen | Sino-Japanese | Japanese: 禪 | cf. Mandarin, originally from Sanskrit Sanskrit: ध्यान, Pali Pali: झन . |