စီး

See also: စာ, စော, စို, စား, and စ

Burmese

Etymology 1

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sí/
• Romanization: MLCTS: ci: • ALA-LC: cīʺ • BGN/PCGN: si: • Okell: sì

Verb

စီး • (ci:)

1. to flow (move as a fluid)

Etymology 2

Wanderwort in the E/SE sprachbund. Compare Chinese 骑, Khmer ជិះ (cih), Nuosu ꋩ (zzy, “to ride; to bear (a rider)”), ꊪ (zy, “to cause to ride”), Thai ขี่ (kìi), Lao ຂີ່ (khī), Zhuang gwih, White Hmong caij, Vietnamese cưỡi, Proto-Austronesian *sakay (“catch a ride, join a group, ride on something”).

Pronunciation

Classifier:

• Phonetic respellings: စီး, ဇီး
• IPA^(key): /sí/, /zí/
• Romanization: MLCTS: ci: • ALA-LC: cīʺ • BGN/PCGN: si:/zi: • Okell: sì/sì

Verb:

• IPA^(key): /sí/
• Romanization: MLCTS: ci: • ALA-LC: cīʺ • BGN/PCGN: si: • Okell: sì

Classifier

စီး • (ci:)

1. numerical classifier for vehicles
   • 2006, Gene Mesher, Burmese for Beginners, page 114:

     ကား နှစ်စီး ရှိတယ်။

     ka: hnacci: hri.tai||

     [I] have two cars.

Verb

စီး • (ci:)

1. to ride on (a vehicle)

Derived terms

• စီးနင်း (ci:nang:)

Usage notes

In the classifier, the voiceless variant /sí/ occurs after /ʔ/; the voiced variant /zí/ after vowels and /ɴ/.

Further reading

• “စီး 1 ‘ride on’” in The Judson Burmese–English Dictionary (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press 1921), page 376.
• “စီး 2 ‘flow’” in The Judson Burmese–English Dictionary (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press 1921), page 377.
• “စီး” in Myanmar–English Dictionary (Myanmar Language Commission 1993). Searchable online at SEAlang.net.