pinyin

noun (sometimes initial capital letter)

1. a system for transliterating Chinese into the Latin alphabet: introduced in 1958 and adopted as the official system of romanization by the People’s Republic of China in 1979.

noun

1. a system of romanized spelling developed in China in 1958: used to transliterate Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet

n.system of Romanized spelling for Chinese, 1963, from Chinese pinyin “to spell, to combine sounds into syllables,” from pin “put together” + yin “sound, tone.” Adopted officially by the People’s Republic of China in 1958. Outside China gradually superseding the 19c. Wade-Giles system (Mao Tse-tung is Wade-Giles, Mao Zedong is pinyin).