Kweilin

English

Etymology

From the Postal Romanization of Mandarin 桂林 (Guìlín).

Pronunciation

• enPR: gwāʹlǐnʹ

Proper noun

Kweilin

1. (dated) Alternative form of Guilin
   • 1944, James Keller, Meyer Berger, Men of Maryknoll‎^[1], New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pages 153–154:

     In June, 1938, word came from Maryknoll in New York that Father Romaniello had been designated Prefect Apostolic of Kweilin. Meanwhile, Kweilin had come under Japanese aerial bombardment. Almost every day now the missioners and their charges ran at least once for the limestone caves outside the city. These caves were natural bomb shelters. Some were small and held only a few persons, others were great caverns with room for thousands.

   • 1957, Chung-cheng (Kai-shek) Chiang, “"Peaceful Coexistence" between China and Russia”, in Soviet Russia in China: A Summing-up at Seventy‎^[2], New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 17:

     To carry out this sinister plot Moscow sent Maring on a special trip to see Dr. Sun in Kweilin in 1921 with a proposal for cooperation between Kuomintang and the Russian Communist Party.

   • 1973, William H. Nienhauser, Jr., Life and Works (Liu Tsung-yüan)‎^[3], New York: Twayne Publishers, page 39:

     While Liu Yü-hsi traveled southeastward overland, Liu Tsung-yüan journeyed southwestward through Yung-chou, his former place of exile, and Kuei-chou (modern Kweilin) to Liu-chou.

   • 1978 January 8, “Friction mounts”, in Free China Weekly‎^[4], volume XIX, number 2, Taipei, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3:

     Some 100 people jointed^{[sic – meaning joined]} in a pitched battle recently at the railway station in Kweilin, Kwangsi, carrying iron rods or bicycle chains as weapons.

   • 1980, Wanda Cornelius, Thayne Short, Ding Hao: America's Air War in China, 1937-1945‎^[5], Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 94–95:

     In some cases, over a hundred thousand men, women, and children could be seen building five-thousand-foot solid runways for huge bombers of a type not yet built in America. These fields were being built in places east of Kunming, places with strange-sounding names like Liuchow, Kweilin, Lingling, and Hengyang, names which would all too soon become quite familiar to hundred of American airmen.

   • 2000, John C. Culver, John Hyde, American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace‎^[6], W. W. Norton & Co., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 335:

     He visited Chennault's frontline airfield at Kweilin (soon to be overrun by the Japanese) and met the optimistic generals who believed that China and Chiang could be saved by airpower.

Further reading

• “Kweilin”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “Kweilin, pn.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “Kweilin”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “Kweilin” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.