马赛克

馬賽克

mǎsàikè

noun #35,684

Meanings

1 mosaic (loanword)
2 pixelation (over a face/image to obscure it)

Characters

horse (foreign 'Mo-')

competition (foreign '-sai-')

to overcome (foreign '-c')

Examples

教堂的墙壁上有美丽的马赛克。

Jiàotáng de qiángbì shàng yǒu měilì de mǎsàikè.

There are beautiful mosaics on the walls of the church.

新闻里给嫌疑人的脸打上了马赛克。

Xīnwén lǐ gěi xiányírén de liǎn dǎ shàng le mǎsàikè.

In the news the suspect's face is pixelated.

Tips

culture

Pure phonetic loan from English 'mosaic' (originally Greek mouseios, 'of the Muses'). In modern Chinese, 打马赛克 ('to apply mosaic') is the everyday verb for pixelating a face on TV or blurring something on social media — a privacy/censorship gesture as routine as 'blur it out' in English.

Stroke Order

马 mǎ

赛 sài

克 kè