Guanxi
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Connections; relationships; one's social or business network. China, uncountable
"To open a new business in China you need guanxi."
- 1 An urban township in Hsinchu County, Taiwan.
"Visitors who do reach the town, in the hills of Hsinchu County southwest of the island’s capital city, Taipei, will find quiet, rural scenery, unique local food, unusual types of tea and a museum tour they’d be hard pressed to get anywhere else. Guanxi Township is also notable for its predominantly Hakka population; the Hakka were a nomadic people who settled widely around southern China and Taiwan, and are known for their courtyard homes. The first Hakka reached Taiwan in the 1600s."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"As we no longer alter the spellings of loanwords to match typical English spelling conventions, this leads to many words with unusual spellings, like "guanxi", "qarin", "kawaii" and "burqa"."
Etymology
Borrowed from the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 關係 /关系 (guānxì, “relation, connection”).
From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 關西 (Guānxī).
More for "guanxi"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.