china

Pluralchinas (some meanings)

1. 1
   proper noun · Chinauncountable

   A large country in East Asia around the Yellow, Yangtze, and Pearl Rivers, since 1949 the People's Republic of China.

   The president flew to China for two days of trade talks.

   Exports to China fell sharply after the new tariffs took effect.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   Plates, cups, bowls, and other tableware made of porcelain.

   They registered for a full set of wedding china.

   The movers wrapped every piece of china in newspaper before packing the boxes.

   Similarporcelain, dishes, crockery

   Note

   It works as a mass noun for the whole collection, like cutlery: a table is set with china, and one plate is a piece of china. Seventeenth-century travel writing already uses it: Thomas Herbert's A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile (1634) lists Cheney ware beside calicoes, and Henry Cogan's 1653 translation of Fernão Mendes Pinto tells of a present of rich pieces of China.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Porcelain, the hard, white, translucent ceramic made from kaolin; chiefly in the US, porcelain tableware is now sometimes called fine or good china.

   She collects china figurines made in the 1920s.

   Hold the bowl up to a lamp and you can see light glowing through the thin china.

   Similarporcelain

   Note

   The material takes its name from the country it came from: china is short for chinaware, ware from China, and Persian chini, the word for porcelain in Persia and India, shaped how English says it. Before another noun it tells what a thing is made of, as in a china doll or a china cup, and it is written lowercase, unlike the country.

4. 4
   proper noun · Chinauncountable

   The cultural region and civilization of East Asia around the Yellow, Yangtze, and Pearl Rivers, taken as a whole across its many dynasties.

   The course follows the history of China from its first dynasties to the twentieth century.

   The exhibit gathers bronzes, scrolls, and porcelain from three thousand years of China's past.

   Note

   English has had this name since at least 1555, when Richard Eden's translation of Peter Martyr, The Decades of the Newe Worlde, spoke of "the great China", whose king was thought the greatest prince in the world. It is the China of five thousand years of history; a border or a government points instead to the modern country, and a reigning dynasty to one of the empires.

5. 5
   proper noun · Chinauncountable

   Mainland China, as distinct from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

   Residents of Hong Kong need a separate permit to travel into China.

   The company has offices in Taipei and Macau but builds its products in China.

   Note

   The shorthand depends on what else is in the sentence: once Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan is in view, plain China often means only the mainland, as when money moves from Macau to China. Because it can seem to place those territories outside China, careful formal and political writing often spells out mainland China instead.

6. 6
   proper noun · Chinahistoricaluncountable

   Any of the empires that held roughly the territory of modern China under successive dynasties, up to the early 20th century.

   The envoys spent months on the road before they reached the court of China.

   The last emperor of China gave up the throne when he was still a small boy.

   Note

   Here China is a state with a throne: the empire that envoys traveled to and treaties were signed with. Historians use it when the court and its government are the subject, while the civilization as a whole covers culture across all the dynasties. This use closes in the early 20th century, when the name passed to the Republic.

7. 7
   proper noun · Chinahistoricaluncountable

   The Republic of China before 1949, and sometimes afterward, especially until the early 1970s, when the People's Republic of China took over China's seat at the United Nations.

   China fought alongside the Allies through the Second World War.

   Through the 1950s, Washington recognized the government in Taipei as China.

   Note

   Mid-century writing can give one name to two rival states. After 1949 some governments and writers kept China for the Republic, while others gave it to the People's Republic, which in time took the name over. In a text from the 1950s or 1960s, the date and the writer decide which state is meant.

8. 8
   proper noun · Chinauncountable

   The single Chinese nation, as in the phrase one China, which asserts that there is only one de jure Chinese nation.

   The new ambassador's first speech affirmed her country's support for one China.

   For decades, officials on both sides of the strait insisted on one China while disputing which government spoke for it.

   Note

   The name stands here for a nation in law rather than for a territory or a government, and it seldom appears outside the phrase one China, often capitalized as One China. The phrase states a political position: governments that hold it can still dispute which of them speaks for that one China, so neutral writing attributes the phrase to whoever uses it rather than adopting it.

9. 9
   noundialectalAustraliaCockneySouth Africacountable

   A friend or mate, from rhyming slang in which china plate stands for mate.

   Cheers, me old china. I owe you a pint for that.

   My china and I drove up the coast for the long weekend.

   Similarmate

   Note

   The rhyming word has gone missing, which is what makes the slang opaque to outsiders. It is mostly heard in friendly address, me old china or old china, and Soldier and Sailor Words and Phrases (1925) glosses Old China simply as chum. Daniel William Barrett's Life and Work among the Navvies calls my china-plate essentially a bricklayer's phrase. Away from Cockney, Australian or South African speech, it sounds put on.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A drum cymbal made in the style of a Chinese cymbal, though usually with Turkish influences.

    He mounts a small china upside down just above the hi-hat.

    Metal drummers often use chinas for harsh, trashy accents.

    Note

    Drummers clip China cymbal to china and use it as an ordinary lowercase count noun: a china, a pair of chinas. Carmine Appice's Drums for Everyone (2010) files them among the short-sound cymbals, so a china is chosen for a quick, sharp accent that dies away fast rather than a long wash of sound.

11. 11
    nouncountable

    Short for China rose, in any of the senses of that name, which covers several different flowers.

    Among the old roses in the bed, a crimson China stood out.

    Rose growers value the Chinas for flowering again and again through the season.

    Note

    Gardeners cut China rose down to China and treat it like a variety name, capital included: a crimson China, an old bed of Chinas. Jane Loudon's The Ladies' Companion to the Flower Garden sorts them as the common China, Rosa indica, and the monthly China, Rosa semperflorens. Because the full name covers several flowers, a qualifier or the Latin name is what tells a reader which plant is meant.

12. 12
    noununcountable

    The root of Smilax china, also called China root, especially as used in medicine.

    The apothecary's shelves held senna, rhubarb, and dried china for his patients.

    His physician prescribed a decoction of china to be taken each morning.

    Note

    An apothecary's china is a medicine, not crockery: the word is simply China root cut short. Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, citing Manardus, credits it with putting good color in the face and taking away melancholy and every infirmity that comes from cold. A decoction of china in this sense is a drink brewed from the root, with nothing from the china cabinet in it.

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