Etymology

Kunlun

Kun·lun
K5U1N1L1U1N1

Today it means: A mountain range in China forming the border between the Tarim Basin to its north and the Tibetan Plateau to its south, extending across the Chinese autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Tibet and province of Qinghai. Full definition →

Mandarin 崑崙 /昆仑
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The story

  1. Mandarin · borrowed from崑崙 /昆仑
  2. English todayKunlun

From the Mandarin 崑崙 /昆仑 (Kūnlún) and 崑崙山／昆仑山 (Kūnlún Shān), with the character 山 (shān) being an ambiguous reference to any raised place, inclusive of islands, hills, mountains, and mountain ranges. The characters 崑崙 /昆仑 (Kūnlún) are phono-semantic compounds adding 山 (shān) as a semantic component (形旁 (xíngpáng)) to the characters 昆 (kūn) and 侖／仑 (lún), which were presumably also homophones for Kunlun in Old Chinese—Zhengzhang's reconstructed pronunciation being /*kuːn.run/—but leaving its further development or original meaning uncertain. See also the Name section of the Wikipedia entry on the mythological Kunlun.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.