扁桃

Chinese

 
flat; tablet; inscription; small boat
peach
simp. and trad.
(扁桃)
variant forms 偏桃
匾桃

Etymology

A Central Asian import during the Medieval period. Perhaps a phono-semantic matching of Persian بادام (bâdâm, almond) (as per Cihai), semantically construed as the “flat peach”.

Pronunciation


Noun

扁桃

  1. almond (the plant Prunus dulcis or its fruit)
  2. flat peach

Synonyms

Derived terms


Japanese

扁桃 (hentō): the tonsils.
Kanji in this term
へん
Hyōgaiji
とう
Grade: S
on’yomi

Etymology

/pentau//fentau//hentau//hentɔː//hentoː/

From Middle Chinese compound 扁桃 (penX daw, literally flat, thin + peach), from the way the almond fruit resembles a flat, thin peach.

The modern sense of tonsil came about by contraction from the full term 扁桃腺 (hentōsen, literally almond gland).

Pronunciation

Noun

扁桃 (hiragana へんとう, katakana ヘントウ, rōmaji hentō, historical hiragana へんたう)

  1. almond
  2. tonsil (from the almond shape)

Synonyms

Derived terms

References

  1. 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
  • 1988, 国語大辞典(新装版) (Kokugo Dai Jiten, Revised Edition) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan
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