Cathay

English

Etymology

From Latin Cathaya, variant of Cataya, from Old Turkic 𐰶𐰃𐱃𐰪 (Qïtań), and ultimately from Khitan 𘱿𘲫 (*qid ún); the Khitan people who conquered northern China as the Liao dynasty in the 10th century and ruled the central Asian Qara Khitai Khanate in the 12th, just prior to the overland European missions to China occasioned by the Pax Mongolica. Most likely cognate with Mongolian хутга (xutga, “knife”) from Proto-Mongolic *kïtuga.

Doublet of Khitan. Cognate with Russian Кита́й (Kitáj, “China”). See Names of China.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kæˈθeɪ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪ

Proper noun

Cathay

1. (archaic) China, specifically medieval northern China as reached by the overland Silk Road to Xi'an or Beijing, not known at the time to be related to southern China as reached by the maritime routes to Guangzhou.
   • 1892, Elbridge S. Brooks, “A BOY WITH AN IDEA.”, in The True Story of Christopher Columbus, Called the Great Admiral‎^[1] (Juvenile), Boston: D. Lothrop Company, →OCLC, pages 16–17:

     Columbus listened to many of these sea-stories, and heard many wonderful things about a very rich land away to the East that folks called Cathay.
     If you look in your geographies you will not find any such place on the map as Cathay, but you will find China, and that was what men in the time of Columbus called Cathay. They told very big stories about this far-off Eastern land. They said its kings lived in golden houses, that they were covered with pearls and diamonds, and that everybody there was so rich that money was as plentiful as the stones in the street.
     This, of course, made the sailors and storekeepers, who were part pirate, very anxious to go to Cathay and get some of the gold and jewels and spices and splendor for themselves. But Cathay was miles and miles away from Italy and Spain and France and England. It was away across the deserts and mountains and seas and rivers, and they had to give it up because they could not sail there.

   • 1982 October 11, “Our Columbus”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 28 August 2017‎^[3]:

     For us that epic celebration somehow is confined to Thanksgiving Day when we celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims who fled the tyranny of Charles I. But imagine, had the Genoese captain and his Spanish caravels not sailed eastward searching for Cipango and Cathay in 1492, then the Pilgrims might have been forced to turn to the known continents of Africa or Asia.

   • 2005 November 1, Margo Jefferson, “Puppets Help Evoke China's History of Love and War”, in The New York Times‎^[4], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 29 May 2015, THEATER‎^[5]:

     For Marco Polo in the 13th century as for Ezra Pound in the 20th, China was "Cathay," a land of mythic wonders. For the American-born director and writer Ping Chong, to visit China and make theater in the West meant exploring myth and history, joining Asian and Western traditions.

2. A settlement in North Dakota.
3. Short for Cathay Pacific.

Translations

Medieval northern China — see also China,‎ Serica

• Asturian: Catái (ast)
• Bulgarian: Кита́й (bg) m (Kitáj)
• Catalan: Catai m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 契丹 (zh) (Qìdān)

• French: Cathay (fr) m
• Galician: Catai (gl)
• Italian: Catai m
• Japanese: キタイ (Kitai)
• Korean: 캐세이 (Kaesei)
• Latin: Serica f (classical); Cataya f, Cathaya f (medieval)
• Ottoman Turkish: ختا
• Persian: ختای (xatây)
• Polish: Kataj
• Portuguese: Catai m, Cathay m
• Russian: Кита́й (ru) m (Kitáj)
• Spanish: Catay m

Portuguese

Proper noun

Cathay m

1. Alternative spelling of Catai