The Chinese word 哥伦布 (Gēlúnbù) is a phonetically formed transliteration, specifically a direct sound-based borrowing, of the name "Columbus," most famously referring to the explorer Christopher Columbus. It is constructed by selecting three Chinese characters whose modern Mandarin pronunciations closely approximate the three syllables of the English name ("Co-lum-bus"), with 哥 (gē) for "Co," 伦 (lún) for "lum," and 布 (bù) for "bus." The characters themselves were chosen primarily for their sound and not for their individual meanings (which are roughly "brother," "ethics/peer," and "cloth" respectively), representing a standard method in Chinese for adopting foreign proper nouns where no pre-existing semantic translation exists.