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Glite Dictionary
Pnom Penh

Pnom Penh

4.6
The capital and largest city of Cambodia
  • proper noun
translation icon : Pnom Penh
  • Many French colonial buildings can still be seen in downtown Pnom Penh.

Examples

  • The Mekong River flows through Pnom Penh, making it an important port city.

  • I visited Phnom Penh last summer.

  • After visiting Pnom Penh, they continued their journey to Siem Reap.

  • Have you ever been to Phnom Penh?

  • Many French colonial buildings can still be seen in downtown Pnom Penh.

  • The Mekong River flows through Pnom Penh, making it an important port city.

  • After visiting Pnom Penh, they continued their journey to Siem Reap.

Synonyms

Phnom Penh
vsPnom Penh
6 4.1

The capital and largest city of Cambodia where three rivers meet

places it in the south-central region rather than at a river junction
Cambodian capital
vsPnom Penh
1 3.0

A city called Phnom Penh that is the capital and largest city of Cambodia

uses a different spelling while meaning the same place

Surface Forms

Pnom Penh main
Phnom Penh main

Morphology

Pnom + Penh

This is a proper name for a city (Phnom Penh) whose constituent parts are not English lexical items (the supplied constituents are marked as not found), so the city meaning cannot be compositionally derived. Place names are largely arbitrary and must be learned as lexical items rather than inferred from parts, making this opaque to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Pnom Penh comes from a local story about a woman called Penh who found sacred statues and built a small Pnom ('hill') to hold them. So the city's name remembers that 'hill' and the woman who made it.