Catai

From Latin Kitai etc., from its Khitan original Khita(n), probably via Uyghur.[1]

• IPA^(key): /kaˈtaj/
• Rhymes: -aj
• Hyphenation: Ca‧tài

Catai m

1. (historical) Cathay (historical name of northern China)
   • c. 1300 [c. 1298], Marco Polo et al., “128. Della città di Ciaglu [128. On the city of Chaglu]”, in Il Milione [The Million]‎, translation of Le divisement dou monde by Marco Polo, Rustichello da Pisa; republished, Antonio Lanza, editor,L'Unità - Editori Riuniti, 1982:

     Ciaglu è una molto grande città de la provincia del Catai, ed è al Grande Kane; e’ sono idoli. La moneta ànno di carte, e fan ardere lor corpi morti.

     Chaglu is a very large city in the province of Cathay: under the Great Khan: they [the people] are idolaters; they use paper money, and burn their dead.

   • early 16^th century, Ludovico Ariosto, “Canto 19”, in Orlando furioso, stanza 1:

     questa, se non sapete, Angelica era,
     del gran Can del Catai la figlia altiera

     This, if you don't know, was Angelica, the haughty daughter of the Great Khan of Cathay.

   • late 19^th c., Giovanni Pascoli, Astolfo‎, published 1913, lines 29–32, collected in Poesie varie di Giovanni Pascoli:

     Pispigliavan le rose: Oh! la regina
     del Catai si fa sposa.
     Angelica, gemeano i fiordispina,
     là, nel Catai, riposa

     The roses whispered: "Oh, the queen of Cathay becomes a bride." "Angelica", moaned the hawthorne, "rests there, in Cathay."

• Cina

• Itaca, acati

• Cathay, Cathai, Catay (obsolete)

Borrowed from Medieval Latin Cathaya. See English Cathay for more.

• Homophone: catai

Catai m

1. (historical) Cathay (historical name of northern China)