Meaning of 船只
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- ship
- boat
- vessel
How to use 船只
船只 is a collective, somewhat formal noun used in news, reports and official notices about ships in general. It is usually not counted with a number. Example: 港口里停着很多船只。(Gǎngkǒu lǐ tíngzhe hěn duō chuánzhī.) Many vessels are moored in the harbor.
船 (chuán) means boat, and 只 (zhī) here is the measure word for boats, as in 一只船. Put the boat together with its own counter and you get 船只, a general word for vessels.
Common mistake: Learners often read 只 here as zhǐ (only), as in 只要 or 只是, but in 船只 it is the first tone zhī, the measure word. Also avoid saying 一个船只; use 船只 for ships in general, or say 一艘船 (yì sōu chuán) for one ship.
船只 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Stroke order for each character
Open a character for its meaning, components and more words.
船 chuán · boat · 11 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
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- 8
- 9
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- 11
只 zhǐ · only · 5 strokes
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- 5
Related words
Words that share a character with 船只.
| 只要 | zhǐyào | so long as; provided; if |
| 只能 | zhǐ néng | can only; obliged to do sth |
| 只是 | zhǐshì | merely; only; just; nothing but; simply |
| 只有 | zhǐyǒu | only have ...; there is only ...; (used in combination with 才[cai2]) it is only if ... (th |
| 只好 | zhǐhǎo | to have no other option but to ...; to have to; to be forced to |
| 划船 | huáchuán | to row a boat; rowing; boating |
| 轮船 | lúnchuán | steamship; steamer; steamboat |
| 只不过 | zhǐbùguò | only; merely; nothing but; no more than; it's just that ... |
| 只见 | zhǐ jiàn | to see (the same thing) over and over again; to see, to one's surprise, (sth happen sudden |
| 船长 | chuánzhǎng | captain (of a boat); skipper |
| 飞船 | fēichuán | spaceship; spacecraft |
| 船员 | chuányuán | sailor; crew member |
Questions about 船只
What does 船只 mean?
船只 (chuánzhī) means "ship; boat" and is used as a noun.
How do you write 船只?
船只 is made of 2 characters: 船 (11 strokes), 只 (5 strokes). That is 16 strokes in total.
Is 船只 an HSK word?
Yes. 船只 is on the HSK 6 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
How is 船只 written in traditional Chinese?
In traditional characters, 船只 is written 船隻.
What is the difference between 船 and 船只?
船 is the everyday word and can refer to one specific boat, as in 这条船. 船只 is more formal and collective, referring to ships as a group or category, so it sounds natural in news and official language.
Why is the traditional form 隻 different from 只 in other words?
In traditional Chinese, the measure word zhī is written 隻, while zhǐ meaning only is written 只. Simplified Chinese merged both into 只, which is why 船只 and 只要 share the same character but have different tones.