Meanings
- A major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, and the largest tributary of the Yellow River.
The fact, therefore, that the Tae pings, when they raised the siege of Hwae king on the 1st September marched westwards by it into Shan se, shows that the Imperial forces were strong enough to prevent their descent by the Wei river.
1856, Thomas Taylor Meadows, The Chinese and their Rebellions, London: Smith, Elder & Co., →OCLC, page 1762 more examples
Leaving Kuanyint'ang there is a drop into a ravine and then a stiff climb of a few hundred feet to reach the pass over a range of mountains, the watershed between the Lo and Yellow rivers. This ridge is really the end of one of the principal ranges of the Ch'inling Shan, the one which runs east and west right across Shensi immediately south of the Wei River.
1921, Eric Teichman, Travels of a Consular Officer in North-West China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →OCLC, →OL, page 3THERE WAS NO China, only a collection of squabbling states, before the short-lived but powerful Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.) brought terror and unity to the land. The Qin were the first to stake their capital here, on the Wei River, but the country’s Han majority — now the world’s biggest ethnic group, more than a billion strong, representing nearly one out of every six people on earth — take their name from the Qin’s successor, the Han dynasty, which raised a new capital nearby, Chang’an, in 202-200 B.C.
2020 May 11, Ligaya Mishan, “Eating in Xi’an, Where Wheat and Lamb Speak to China’s Varied Palette”, in New York Times, archived from the original on 11 May 2020
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
Partial calque from Mandarin 渭河 (Wèihé, literally “Wei river”)
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Chinese Cantonese 渭河
- 渭河 (wai⁶ ho⁴)major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces
Chinese Mandarin 渭河
- 渭河 (Wèihé)major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces
Finnish Wei
- Weimajor river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces
Japanese 渭水, 渭河
- 渭水 (Isui)major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces
- 渭河major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces
Korean 웨이허 강, 웨이수이
- 웨이허 강major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces
- 웨이수이 (Weisu'i)major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces
Russian Вэйхэ́
- Вэйхэ́ (Vɛjxɛ́)major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces
Cite this entry
Wei River. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Wei%20River
“Wei River.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Wei%20River. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Wei River,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Wei%20River.
Source: Wei River on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.