countertomy

countertomy

English

Etymology

counter- +‎ -tomy, a calque of Chinese 反切.

Noun

countertomy

1. (rare) Fanqie.
   • 1994, The journal of Asian studies:

     Here we need mention only such momentous developments as the creation of countertomy or cut-and-splice pseudospelling (fan-ch'ieh), generally attributed for the last thousand years to the Buddhists, which for the first time enabled Chinese to indicate the pronunciation of unknown graphs fairly unambiguously and analytically [...].

   • 2010, Victor H. Mair, The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, Columbia University Press (→ISBN), page 40:

     Another related phenomenon, which lasted from at least the latter part of the tenth century until the end of the nineteenth century, was the practice of writing fan-ch'ieh (countertomy or reverse cutting), Buddhist-inspired pseudo-spellings as one graph instead of three.