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东西

dōng xi

HSK 1 · word 85 of 3,000

Meaning

Measure word

个 gè or 件 jiàn

Example sentence

喝点东西吗?

hē diǎn dōng xī ma

Want a drink?

Characters in 东西

东 east and 西 west, and yet the word means thing. The compound is genuinely opaque — the popular story about the eastern and western markets of the Tang capital is folk etymology rather than settled fact.

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