凌晨 – vocab dash

凌晨língchén

Top 4000

Meanings

1. very early in the morning

2. in the wee hours

Characters used

凌to approach 晨dawn

Examples2

凶杀案xiōngshā'àn于yú凌晨língchén三sān到dào五wǔ点diǎn间jiān发生fāshēng。

The murder happened between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.

过年guònián吃chī饺子jiǎozi的de习俗xísú和hé中国Zhōngguó古代gǔdài的de计时法jìshífǎ有关yǒuguān：中国Zhōngguó古代gǔdài把bǎ每měi一yī天分tiānfèn为wéi十二shí'èr个gè时段shíduàn，每天měitiān开始kāishǐ是shì子时zǐshí，相当于xiāngdāngyú晚上wǎnshang11点diǎn到dào凌晨língchén1点diǎn。

The custom of eating dumplings on New Year's Eve is related to an ancient Chinese method of measuring time; in ancient China, each day was divided into twelve sections: the beginning of each day was called 'first time', which corresponds to the period from 11pm to 1am.