china
noun
Simple meaning
A large country and culture in East Asia around major rivers
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
chynuhSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtʃaɪnə
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A large country in East Asia, occupying the region around the Yellow, Yangtze, and Pearl Rivers; the People's Republic of China, since 1949.
A cultural region and civilization in East Asia, occupying the region around the Yellow, Yangtze, and Pearl Rivers, taken as a whole under its various dynasties.
High quality porcelain originally made only in China
China in One China, asserting that there is only one de jure Chinese nation
A government on the island of Taiwan established in 1949 by Chiang Kai-shek after the conquest of mainland China by the Communists led by Mao Zedong
Alternative letter-case form of china: porcelain tableware.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A large country in East Asia, occupying the region around the Yellow, Yangtze, and Pearl Rivers; the People's Republic of China, since 1949.
Used this way, china is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use china
- “My family has a beautiful set of china for special occasions.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
The People's Republic of China.
Official name of China: a country in East Asia.
A province of Taiwan (Republic of China) (from 1945).
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A cabinet (usually with glass doors) for storing and displaying china.
Twining perennial vine having racemes of fragrant greenish flowers.
Tall perennial herb of tropical Asia with dark green leaves.
Tall annual herb or subshrub of tropical Asia having velvety leaves and yellow flowers and yielding a strong fiber.
Chinese pink with deeply toothed rose-lilac flowers with a purplish eye.
Shrubby Chinese rose.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Tree of northern India and China having purple blossoms and small inedible yellow fruits.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: large country in East Asia
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.