Nanking

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An older romanized spelling of Nanjing, a major historic city on the Yangtze River in eastern China ; a sturdy buff-colored cotton fabric originally woven in that region
2. An outdated transliteration of Nanjing, the former capital on the Yangtze River in east China ; a durable yellowish cotton cloth once produced in that area
3. Old English spelling of the eastern Chinese city Nanjing on the Yangtze River ; a strong pale yellow cotton textile that takes its name from that place

Etymology: Nanking is the older English spelling of Nanjing, the city in eastern China that served as the capital of several dynasties and states. The name comes from Chinese "nán" (south) and "jīng" (capital), and it reflects the city's position south of the imperial capital at Beijing, which was called Beijing (northern capital) for the same reason. The spelling "Nanking" was the standard form in English for much of the modern era, shaped by older Romanization systems that rendered Chinese sounds according to their own conventions. When pinyin became the official system for transliterating Mandarin, the city's name was regularized as Nanjing, and English writers gradually adopted that form. Because the older spelling survives in some fixed expressions and product names, readers still meet it in historical texts and in certain textiles, most famously nankeen, a cotton cloth once associated with the city.