埋土

埋土

Chinese

		to blame; bury	earth; dust; rural earth; dust; rural; uncouth; uncultured; plebeian
simp. and trad. (埋土)		埋	土
Literally: “to bury in earth”.

Etymology

Corruption of 理工 due to superstitious connotations related to 工字不出頭 (one cannot become successful in life by being a worker, literally “the vertical stroke in the character 工 does not poke above the first horizontal stroke”). The 𤣩 and 工 in 理工 are therefore replaced with 土, where the vertical stroke pokes above the first horizontal stroke.

Pronunciation

• Cantonese (Jyutping): maai⁴ tou²

---

• Cantonese
  • (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou)⁺
    • Jyutping: maai⁴ tou²
    • Yale: màaih tóu
    • Cantonese Pinyin: maai⁴ tou²
    • Guangdong Romanization: mai⁴ tou²
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /maːi̯²¹ tʰou̯³⁵/

Proper noun

埋土

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, humorous) Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Synonyms

• 理大