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The face of cities in China may be anonymous, but the character of residents in these cities is different.

I looked up anonymous in dictionaries. It says if you describe a place as anonymous, you dislike it because it has no unusual or interesting features and seems unwelcoming. But someone told me that native speakers usually use anonymous to describe a name that is not known or that is not made public instead of using the first definition I mentioned. So, I'm confused. Can anybody tell me whether it makes sense to use "anonymous" to describe a place that has no conspicuous features?

The source text wants to say the cities in China look same. So, is it appropriate to use "anonymous" here?

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  • Have you checked the dictionary definitions of anonymous?
    – KillingTime
    Commented Nov 19, 2021 at 7:45
  • What did your dictionary tell you about the meaning of anonymous? People asking questions here are expected to have done some research prior to asking a question.
    – High Performance Mark
    Commented Nov 19, 2021 at 7:45
  • I looked up anonymous in dictionaries. It says if you describe a place as anonymous, you dislike it because it has no unusual or interesting features and seems unwelcoming. But someone told me that native speakers ususally use anonymous to describe a name that is not known or that is not made public instead of using the first definition I mentioned. So, I'm confused.
    – Vincent
    Commented Nov 19, 2021 at 8:15

2 Answers 2

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Since the context is not clear here, the following sentence can be one of the interpretations of the above sentence-

the cities of China may not appear so obvious to people.

In other words, one can not distinguish/identify cities in China

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    – Community
    Commented Nov 19, 2021 at 7:58
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The literal meaning of the word is 'nameless', so its principal sense is to refer to a person or place whose name is not known. By extension, it can be used to describe a person or place lacking any distinctive characteristics to make them memorable, or noticeably different from others.

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  • Get it! Thanks a lot!
    – Vincent
    Commented Nov 19, 2021 at 8:42

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