ချီ

Burmese

Etymology

For the "lift, carry" sense, from Proto-Lolo-Burmese *kyi¹˜² (“to lift, raise”), from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kyi (“to lift, raise, awake”). Cognate with Akha [script needed] (tjhì, “to lift”), Old Chinese 起 (OC *kʰɯʔ, “to rise, raise”) (STEDT).

It is unclear if the particle and classifier senses are etymologically connected, though MED groups them together.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t͡ɕʰì/
• Romanization: MLCTS: hkyi • ALA-LC: khyī • BGN/PCGN: chi • Okell: hci

Verb

ချီ • (hkyi)

1. to lift
2. to carry
3. (of an animal or bird) to carry off, carry away
4. to begin
5. to march

Particle

ချီ • (hkyi)

1. particle often suffixed to certain nouns to form adverbial phrases of time, number or manner

Classifier

ချီ • (hkyi)

1. numerical classifier used in counting number of performances or shows

Derived terms

• ကြွချီ (krwa.hkyi)
• ချီကောက် (hkyikauk)
• ချီတက် (hkyitak)
• ချီတုံချတုံဖြစ် (hkyitumhkya.tumhprac)
• ခုနစ်သံချီဟစ် (hku.nacsamhkyihac)
• စစ်ချီ (cachkyi)
• စာချီ (cahkyi)
• စာရေးစာချီ (care:cahkyi)
• ဆေးရေးပန်းချီ (hce:re:pan:hkyi)
• တစ်ချီတစ်မောင်းစမ်း (tachkyitacmaung:cam:)
• တပ်ချီ (taphkyi)
• ပန်းချီ (pan:hkyi)
• ပန်းချီဆရာ (pan:hkyihca.ra)
• ယွန်းပန်းချီ (ywan:pan:hkyi)
• လက်အုပ်ချီ (lak-uphkyi)
• လေကြောင်းချီ (le-kraung:hkyi)
• ဝန်ချီစက် (wanhkyicak)
• သစ်ထွင်းပန်းချီ (sachtwang:pan:hkyi)
• အစချီ (a.ca.hkyi)

 

Further reading

• “ချီ” in Myanmar–English Dictionary (Myanmar Language Commission 1993). Searchable online at SEAlang.net.