Chinese words that use Chinese Characters in their names

[Magnus1977]

Flip Flops.

Intersection

The cross.

What do these things have in common? They all use characters in their names...

Flip flops on the mainland are called 人字拖

Intersections are called 十字路口

The Cross is called 十字架

In the name of the object... it tells you the character that it is supposed to represent.

Can you all think of anymore?? I would love to hear and see more that you can all think of !?

[Jane_PA]

丁字路口 which means the crossing is like Chinese character 丁, just like 人字拖.

金字塔 similarly, the pyramid look like Chinese character 金.

一字排开

[roddy]

丁字裤 - thong (as in the underwear, not the footwear)。十字架 (oops, had that one)，十字绣，八字还没一瞥呢。。。

[jbradfor]

十字頭螺刀 -- Phillips screwdriver

一字頭螺刀 -- flat blade screwdriver (I think)

[Magnus1977]

These are awesome everybody THANKS! My wife is hitting her forehead that she didn't think of these!?

What do you actually call these in Chinese... is there a special term?

[roddy]

字字词.

I made that up.

[jbradfor]

Well, if you really want to give her a headache (not sure why you would...), you can always cheat and do a web search.

[roddy]

Or just make 'em up. 一字肉 = sausage. 口字玻璃 = window. Endless hours of fun and amusement.

[ma3zi1]

Here is a phrase that I'm fond of:

色字頭上一把刀

It literally means: "there is a knife above the character for lust"

Figuratively it's something like: "lascivous activities can lead to bitter consequences"

I even contributed it to CC-CEDICT ;)

[James Johnston]

回形针 paperclip

Does it count if it doesn't include 字?

[Daan]

十字軍 - the crusaders.

[James Johnston]

A character and a colour:

红十字会 - the Red Cross

Perhaps we should move on from the cross theme!

[rob07]

八字开, as in 衙门八字开，有理无钱莫进来.

Apart from specific words, you can also just say in normal speech that something looks like character such and such. Continuing on the 八字 theme, here's an example from 鲁迅:

夹袄也帖住了脊心，两块肩胛骨高高凸出，印成一个阳文的“八”字。 - describing how a very thin and sick person's shoulder blades were sticking out.

[skylee]

八字 (the date and time of birth)

八字眉

八字腳

[zhxlier]

田字格，米字格，writing paper with printed grids.

Tsinghua University has a building named 工字厅, named after its shape.

[Guest realmayo]

Not to lower the tone, but I remember Shu Qi being described a 八 something, many years ago.

[skylee]

To skylee: 八字 is not named after the shape of 八. To describe a birth date, two characters（天干、地支) are required to define either the year, the month, the date and the time. 2x4=8, so 8 characters total. Therefore it's called 八字。

I know that. 十字軍 was not named after the shape 十 either.

[zhxlier]

Sorry... I guess I misunderstood op.

I know that. 十字軍 was not named after the shape 十 either.

[skylee]

米字旗 the Union Jack

[Guest realmayo]

米字旗 the Union Jack

That's a very cool one!

十字軍 was not named after the shape 十

Oh. It would make sense if it was.