Foochow
/ˈfuːtʃaʊ/noun
An older English and postal-rom romanization for Fuzhou, a city in southeastern China, and for its local variety of Chinese.
Did you know?Foochow is not the local pronunciation of the city’s name; it is a nineteenth-century Western postal romanization that became especially common in missionary, maritime, and tea-trade records.
Etymological Timeline
Warring States–Han period
Chinese
福州
“A place-name written with characters meaning “fortune” or “blessing” and “administrative district” or “prefecture.””
Middle Chinese
Chinese
福州 (Fuk-tsyuw, reconstructed)
“The historical Chinese form underlying later regional pronunciations of the name.”
19th Century
English
Foochow
“Western postal and missionary romanization of the city now written Fuzhou in Mandarin pinyin.”
19th–20th Century
English
Foochow
“English name for both Fuzhou and the Min Dong Chinese variety spoken in the surrounding region.”
Modern English
English
Foochow
“A historical or alternative English form of Fuzhou, now largely replaced by standardized pinyin.”