an 8-letter word

Encolpius

Encolpius

Senior Member
Hungarian
Good morning ladies & gentlemen, I think it's difficult to find in dictionaries headwords containing random numbers. How would you translate the phrase "an eight-letter word" into your language? Thanks for your cooperation & have a wonderful Sunday. Enc.

English: eight-letter word
Hungarian: nyolc betűs szó [nyolc=eight, betűs-letter adj., szó=word]
Spanish: palabra de ocho letras
Italian: parola di otto lettere
 
    • In Greek it's «οκταγράμματος, -τη, -το» [o̞kt̠aˈɣɾamat̠o̞s̠] (masc.), [o̞kt̠aˈɣɾamat̠i] (fem.), [o̞kt̠aˈɣɾamat̠o̞] (neut.), also colloquially with dissimilation «οχταγράμματος» [o̞xt̠aˈɣɾamat̠o̞s̠] < Classical adj. «ὀκταγράμματος, -τος, -τον» /oktɐˈgrɐm.mɐtos/ (masc. or fem.), /oktɐˈgrɐm.mɐton/ (neut.) --> a word of eight letters, a compound: prefix «ὀκτα-» /oktɐ-/, from the numeral «ὀκτώ» /okˈtɔː/ --> eight, modelled after the prefixes «ἑπτα-» /heptɐ-/ --> seven, «τετρα-» /tetrɐ-/ --> four etc. + Classical deverbative 3rd declension neuter noun «γράμμα» /ˈgrɐm.mɐ/ (nom. sing.), «γράμματος» /ˈgrɐm.mɐtos/ (gen. sing.) --> lit. scratching, later, that which is written, letter, (communication) letter < Classical v. «γράφω» /ˈgrɐpʰɔː/ --> to write + suffix «-τος» /-tos/.
     
    Thanks, fascinating unique answers. 👍🍀
    So, 8-letter word would be in Greek.... (?)
     
    Encolpius said:
    Thanks, fascinating unique answers. 👍🍀
    So, 8-letter word would be in Greek.... (?)
    Click to expand...
    «Οκταγράμματη» [o̞ktaˈɣɾamat̠i] (fem.) or colloquially «οχταγράμματη» [o̞xt̠aˈɣɾamati] (fem.). Feminine, because the word...word («λέξη» [ˈle̞k͡s̠i]) is feminine. So, «οκταγράμματη λέξη» [o̞kt̠aˈɣɾamat̠iˈle̞k͡s̠i].
     
    Finnish: kahdeksankirjaiminen sana

    kahdeksan = eight
    -kirjaiminen (adj.) < kirjain = letter
    sana = word
     
    Russian, as it otherwise not so seldom happens, has two ways to say it, an analytic one, and a synthetic one.
    Analytically: слово из восьми букв.
    Synthetically: восьмибуквенное слово.
    Восемь: eight; буква: a letter.
    I find the synthetic way is more expressive, but the analytic one feels more standard & is the one that easily comes to mind.
     
    In Hindi, it can be 'आठ अक्षर वाले शब्द' -- which means something like 'word of eight letters'.
     
    סייבר־שד said:
    The RAE dictionary includes single-word terms for words of 2, 3 and 4 letters: bilítera, trilítera and cuadrilítera, respectively. I think we could just as easily say palabra "octolítera", but I guess they find that a little too baroque to deserve inclusion in the dictionary. :D
    Click to expand...
    I agree.

    Same thing in Catalan. Biliteral and triliteral exist in theory for words of two and three letters, so *octoliteral would be the logical learned word, but the dictionary stopped at three.

    The normal thing to say is paraula (or mot) de vuit lletres.
     
    Hebrew: מילה בת שמונה אותיות

    מילה = word
    שמונה = eight
    אותיות = letters

    בת is the feminine form of בן, a unique word in Hebrew that has no equivalent in other languages. It roughly means "has the property of".
     
    Swedish:
    Ett ord på åtta bokstäver - a word on eight letters. It's the common way to say it, but ett ord med åtta bokstäver - a word with eight letters can alao be seen sometimes. I would only use med if asking something like ett ord med fyra konsonanter i följd - a word with four consonants in a row.
     
    Turkish:

    sekiz harfli sözcük

    sekiz = eight
    harfli = lettered; from "harf" = letter.
    sözcük = word; or "kelime" as a synonym.
     
    Chinese:
    八个字母的词（bā gè zìmǔ de cí）
    八: eight
    个: (classifier)
    字母: letter
    的: (determiner)
    词: word
     
    The noun phrase in post #19 refer to an 8-letter word in a language other than Chinese.
    Here "letter" (字母) means "letter of the alphabet". Chinese is written using "characters".
    Each character is a syllable, so characters are not letters.
    A Chinese character can be a 子 but not a 字母.

    I usually translate 的 as "backwards of". So this is "a word of eight letters", not "eight letters of a word",
    even though "eight letters" comes before 的.
     
    dojibear said:
    The noun phrase in post #19 refer to an 8-letter word in a language other than Chinese.
    Here "letter" (字母) means "letter of the alphabet". Chinese is written using "characters".
    Each character is a syllable, so characters are not letters.
    A Chinese character can be a 子 but not a 字母.
    Click to expand...
    Yes, the phrase I referred to is used to describe a foreign languages. Because I didn't come up with a suitable equivalent for describing something in Chinese itself.
    There is a typo, a Chinese character is called "字".

    For describing Chinese, for example, it uses "单字词" "双字词" "三字词" "四字词" to describe a word containing 1/2/3/4 character(s).
    单 - single; 双 - couple; 三 - three; 四 - four; 字 - Chinese character; 词 - a unit that expresses a thing (also "word" for foreign languages)
    As for a "word" containing eight characters, it is hardly called a "词" in Chinese, it's mostly called a "短语"(phrase) or even a sentence. So it may be called "八字短语", an 8-character phrase.
     
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