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吉屋
gat1 uk1 |
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vacant house, i.e. domestic premises already vacated by former occupants and now is ready for new occupants to move in. Used esp. in real estate advertisements e.g. 吉屋出售. Originally Cantonese only, but is now used on the Chinese mainland and Taiwan as well. 空 [hung1] was the original word that means “vacant”. But 空 is pronounced exactly like 凶 “ominous”, which is considered as inauspicious. The very opposite of “ominous” is “lucky”. So 吉, meaning “lucky”, is chosen to replace 空.
Level: 2 Google Frequency: 169,000 This term is used in both Cantonese and Mandarin/Standard written Chinese. |
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吉屋 | ||
This word has been viewed 1998 times since 30th Oct 2012, was added by tym on 14th Jul 2004 02:25 and last edited on 30th Oct 2008 19:03 |
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Characters in this word:吉 gat1 - lucky, auspicious; (粵) vacant屋 uk1 - house |
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