chi
/kaɪ/ noun, proper noun
Also a form of ch'i
Forms chis khi ch'i ki qi chih ch'ih
- noun The twenty-second letter of the Classical and Modern Greek alphabets.
- noun (philosophy, mysticism) A life force in traditional Chinese philosophy, culture, medicine, etc, related (but not limited) to breath and circulation.
- noun The Chinese foot, a traditional Chinese unit of length based on the human forearm.
- noun (Mainland China) The Chinese unit of length standardized in 1984 as ¹/₃ of a meter.
- noun (Taiwan) The Taiwanese unit of length standardized as ¹⁰/₃₃ of a meter, identical to the Japanese shaku.
- noun (Hong Kong) The chek or Hong Kong foot, a unit of length standardized as 0.371475 meters.
- proper noun (historical, dated) Qi, an ancient Chinese duchy, and later kingdom, under the Zhou dynasty
- proper noun A Chinese surname.
- proper noun (slang) Chicago
- proper noun (slang) Chichester (city in England)
- proper noun A male given name.
- proper noun A surname from Chinese.
Synonyms
Chinese foot Taiwanese foot Hong Kong foot chek qi ch'i ki khi
Etymology
From Latin chī, from Ancient Greek χεῖ (kheî).
From the Mandarin 氣/气 (qì) from the Wade–Giles romanization: chʻi⁴, from Middle Chinese 氣 (MC khj+jH), from Old Chinese 氣 (OC *kʰɯds, “breath, vapor”). Compare modern Japanese 気(き) (ki), Korean 기(氣) (gi) and Vietnamese khí (氣).
From the pinyin romanization of Mandarin 尺 (chǐ). Doublet of chek.
From the Wade-Giles romanization of the Mandarin Chinese 齊 /齐 (Qí).
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “chi”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details