苦力

Chinese

 
bitter; intensely; miserable
bitter; intensely; miserable; painful
power; force; strength
trad. (苦力)
simp. #(苦力)

Etymology

Possibly a phono-semantic matching of Hindi क़ुली (qulī) or its cognates.

Pronunciation


Noun

苦力

  1. labor; hard work
  2. (historical) coolie; laborer

Synonyms

  • (coolie): (Cantonese) 咕喱 (gu1 lei1)
  • (coolie): (Teochew) 龜里 (ku-lí), 龜理龟理 (ku-lí), 咕哩 (ko͘-li)

Japanese

Kanji in this term
くー
Grade: 3
りー
Grade: 1
irregular

Etymology

Ateji (当て字).
Borrowed from Mandarin 苦力 (kǔlì).[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

苦力(クーリー) • (kūrī) 

  1. a coolie

References

  1. Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
  2. NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: NHK Publishing, →ISBN
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