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I found the sentence 他是华胄，所以气质不凡. It is been translated as "He is the offspring of a noble family, thus his character is not a common one". I also found for 华胄 the translation "offspring of the huaxia" and simply "chinese".

Verbatim, 华胄 would be "chinese helmet", "flowery helmet", "illustrous helmet".

Obviously the word is a metaphor, what was is its original meaning and what does it imply culturally as a metaphor ?

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胄 (由 + 月) means descendants, whereas 冑 (a different character, 由 + 冃) means helmet. Since they look similar, they got merged.

华胄 means either of Han lineage or of noble descent.

There is no word 华冑, which would mean Chinese helmet.

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  • Do you know what 冃 is depicting ?
    – Abdul Al Hazred
    Commented Oct 17, 2015 at 19:06
  • 1
    冃 mào means hat, same as 帽.
    – user4452
    Commented Oct 17, 2015 at 19:08

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