Pei-ching

English

Map including PEI-CHING (PEKING) (1975)

Etymology

From the Wade–Giles romanization of the Mandarin 北京 (Pei³-ching¹).

Proper noun

Pei-ching

1. (uncommon) Alternative form of Beijing
   • 1860, Laurence Oliphant, Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the Years 1857, '58, '59‎^[2], page 502:

     At Canton we have Anglicized the native word into something attainable by English tongues, nor do we talk of Ning-poh ; let us not be driven into calling Pekin, Pei-ching, as the latest vocabulary has it, for, even if we did, no Chinaman would understand us.

   • 1930, William Cohn, Chinese Art‎^[3], Edinburgh: H. and J. Pillans & Wilson, →OCLC, page 16:

     In the year 1421 (period Yung-lo) the present Peiping, which had at that time the same name, was officially chosen as the capital of the Ming under the name Pei-ching, though they had been engaged on their great building projects there since the year 1409.

   • 1963, Trewin Copplestone, editor, World Architecture: An Illustrated History‎^[4], Hamlyn, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 98:

     Pei-ching, the 'northern capital', has existed since about 2400 B.C., when there was a neolithic settlement on the site. Historically, it was the capital of one of the 'Warring States' in the third and fourth centuries B.C., a provincial town in Han times, lost to the northern invaders during the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., recovered by the T'ang, again held by the barbarians in the tenth to twelfth centuries. In 1215 it fell to Genghis Khan and was rebuilt as Ta-tu or T'ai-du, the 'great capital' of Kublai. This had many resemblances to later Peking, but was more regular.

   • 1969, Joseph Kitagawa, editor, Understanding Modern China‎^[5], Quadrangle Books, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 49:

     In 1938 the great stream was deflected to the south by the Chinese in a misplaced effort to delay the advance of Japanese forces moving southward from T'ien-ching (Tientsin) and Pei-ching (Peking); and it flowed southeastward into the Huai river system and thence through a series of lakes and the Grand Canal down into the Yangtze drainage area.

   • 1984, Masaharu Ozaki, “The Taoist Priesthood: From Tsai-chia to Chʻu-chia”, in Religion and the Family in East Asia‎^[6], Berkley: University of California Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 98:

     In Pei-ching in pre-war China, however, the Tʻien-shih Tao Taoists located there seem to have led lives of chʻu-chia priests, like the Chʻüan-chen Chiao 全真教 Taoists [YOSHIOKA 1975: 418-420].

   • 1998, Chris Peers, Warlords of China 700 BC to AD 1662‎^[7], Arms and Armour Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 10:

     The city which we now know as Beijing or Peking, for example, was known under the Kin dynasty as Chung-tu, then as Ta-tu when it became the capital of the Mongol Yuan. The Ming renamed it first Pei-ping, and then Pei-ching, which means 'Northern Capital'.

Translations

Beijing — see Beijing

Further reading

• Pei-ching, Peiching at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
• “Pei-ching” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.