Taxonomy of meanings for 亡:　　

Additional information about 亡

說文解字:

Criteria
• FLOURISH
  

  1. The current general word for flourishing or thriving of any kind, abstract or concrete is shèng 盛 (ant. shuāi 衰 "decline").

  2. Chāng 昌 and xīng 興 (all ant. wáng 亡 "be ruined"), and lóng 隆 (ant. tì 替 "decline") refer primarily to the flourishing of political institutions and the like.

  3. Xí 息, zhí 殖, and fān 蕃 refer specifically to the flourishing of flora and fauna.

  4. The literal word for luxuriant growth of plants is mào 茂 (ant. diāo 凋 "dried up").

  5. Róng 榮 (ant. kū 枯 "dried up") refers especially to splendid luxuriance of growth as an admirable sight.

  6. Fēng 豐 (ant.* wěi 萎 "dried up and thin on the ground") refers to rich thick growth, often as an asset.

  7. Fān 蕃 and yù 鬱 (mostly reduplicated yù yù 鬱鬱 ) refer to ample thick growth.

  8. Fú shū 扶疏 is a poetic word referring to luxurious growth of plants.

  NB: There is a remarkable abundance of terminology in this semantic field, and in many cases the distinctions are less than clear.

• DEFEAT
  

  1. The current general word for defeating someoneor some state in any form of battle is bài 敗.

  2. Pò 破 (ant. quán 全 "leave intact") refers to a complete routing of an opponent.

  3. Jìn 盡 refers to the complete annihilation of an opponent.

  4. Fù 覆 refers to the inflicting of a major defeat with lasting effects on an army.

  5. Qīng 傾 refers to the toppling of a system of government.

  6. Wáng 亡 (ant. cún 存 "allow to survive") refers specifically to causing the discontinuation of a state.

  7. Cuò 挫 refers specifically to inflicting a military defeat on an army.

  8. Bài jī 敗績 refers to a major military defeat.

  9. Fù 負 occasionally refers to a defeat suffered, but usually in the combination shèng fù 勝負, and as a verb it does not take objects or complements. See FAIL

• BE IN
  

  [GRAMMATICALISED/LEXICAL]

  1. The general word is zài 在 (ant. wáng 亡 "be not present, be absent") which refers to any presence of anything in anything.

  [GENERAL]

  2. Chù 處 is often non-literally spatial and refers to occupancy of a well-defined place in society, but has a wide range of associated meanings and is very common.

  [ABSTRACT!]

  3. Yú 於 is grammaticalised as a preposition but can come to function as a main verb "be in", and this verbal use may perhaps be taken to be etymologically primary.

  [GRAMMATICALISED]

  4. Jū 居 is orginally "to dwell at home" and sometimes comes to mean more generally "be in". See BE AT HOME

  [MARGINAL]; [[RARE]]

  5. Lu# 履 "tread on" occasionally refers to being in a certain position.

  [ABSTRACT], [ELEVATED]; [[RARE]]

• LIVE
  

  1. The current standard word for being alive is shēng 生 (ant. sǐ 死 "be dead").

  2. Cún 存 (ant. wáng 亡 ) and zài 在 (ant. mò 沒 / 歿 "go under") refer to continuing in the state of being alive, but the word also refers to continued existence in general.

  3. Huó 活 (ant. sǐ 死 ) specifically refers to the state of being alive when one might have been dead, and strongly connotes not only a failure to die but also the continued existence of life energy.

  4. Mìng 命 refers specifically to one's life-span and not to the content of one's life that might be described in a biography.

  5. Shēn 身 comes to refer to the life one conducts as in xíng shēn 行身 "conduct one's life" (Greek bios), and, and to one's lifespan as in zhōng shēn 終身 "all one's life".

  6. Shòu 壽 (yāo 夭 "short life ended by an unnaturally early death") refers specifically to a lifespan as long as it naturally can be and should be.

• LOSE
  

  1. The dominant general word for to lose is shī 失 (ant. dé 得 "get") which refers to any disappearance of something which belonged to one in any sense, but the emphasis tends to be on the loss being the result of a mistake rather than mere insouciance.

  2. Yí 遺 (ant. cún 存 "keep in one's possession) is to lose through inadvertency an object that one would like to have or to keep.

  3. Wà2ng 亡 (ant. yǒu 有 "have") refers to the the disappearance or loss of property, what one has control of or owns, not to the loss of e.g. parts of the body.

  4. Sàng 喪 (ant. dé 得 "get") is to lose something or someone dear to one or close to one, including objects of "inalienable possession", either momentarily for a time, or permanently.

  5. Juān 捐 is sometimes used to refer to seeing one's supply of something diminished or to have such a supply disappear.

• PERSIST
  

  1. The current general word for the persistence or continued existence of something is cún 存 (ant. wáng 亡 "cease to exist").

  2. Huó 活 "survive" (ant. sǐ 死 "die") refers specifically to survival of a living creature.

  3. Yí 遺 (ant. shī 失 "get lost") is used to refer to things that continue to exist or are handed down from earlier times.

• FLEE
  

  1. The current general word for illicit disappearance from where one has some obligation to remain is zǒu 走.

  2. Táo 逃 refers to an attempted or successful escape to a place, or from any difficult predicament (for which see AVOID), occasionally also from a person or group of persons. Thus to 逃 a state is to flee TO a state, to 逃 a predicament is to flee FROM a predicament, and to 逃 a person is to flee FROM that person.

  3. Bèi 北 is to flee during a battle engagement.

  4. Bēn 奔 is refers to absconding from a place at high speed.

  5. Dùn 遁 is to get away by simply going into hiding rather than by seeking refuge in a certain alternative place.

  6. Wáng 亡 and the much rarer sàng 喪 often refers to a dignified almost public way of leaving one place for another, especially to going into exile in order to escape danger.

  7. Yì 逸 / 佚 is to seek and find freedom through fleeing from an oppressive situation.

  8. Cuàn 竄 is primarily to sneak away, availing oneself of a narrow "window of opportunity", and going into hiding after the flight.

  NB: There is a striking number of binomes expressing flight. These need to be analysed in detail to determine their semantic nuances.

• DESTROY
  

  1. The current general word for destruction of any kind is huǐ 毀, and what is destroyed may anything from a toy or a house to a state.

  2. Miè 滅 refers to the physical destruction of cities or states, and the word implies the use of external military force, and typically military resistance.

  3. Pò 破 is always violent destruction of concrete objects of any kind.

  4. Cán 殘 focusses on the reckless attitude shown by the destroyer.

  5. Yāng 殃 focusses on the disaster constituted by destruction, and this word is used mostly nominally.

  6. Suì 碎 focusses on complete smashing into small pieces of what is destroyed.

  7. Huài 壞 and huī 墮 / 隳 are "to be destroyed, to collapse" but the words are also used transitively "cause to be destroyed, cause to collapse".

  8. Wáng 亡 (ant. fù 復 "reestablish") refers to the political/social ruin of a state and does not focus on any form of physical annihilation or damage.

  9. Bài 敗 and zéi 賊 are currently used for the destruction of abstract things such as dé 德 "virtue".

• DISAPPEAR
  

  1. The dominant word for ceasing to exist is wáng 亡 (and there is no early evidence for the reading wú 亡 ).

  2. Mò 沒 "go under" is a dramatic verb referring to the disappearance of something.

  3. Xí 息 "be extinguished" is a politely periphrastic way of referring to the disappearance of something.

  4. Què 闕 can refer to the disappearance of a practice.

• OBTAIN
  

  1. The current general and highly abstract verb for obtaining any form of possession of anything abstract or concrete is dé 得 (ant. shī 失 "lose inadvertently").

  2. Obtaining something through effort and often with an element of choice involved is qǔ 取 (ant. qì 棄 "choose to reject").

  3. Obtaining something that tries to escape or is otherwise hard to get is huò 獲 (ant. wáng 亡 "miss out on, fail to get").

  4. Getting something which one has had before is fǎn 反.

• DIE
  

  1. The dominant general word is sǐ 死 (ant. shēng 生 "be alive"), and this can refer to the death of plants as well as animals or men.

  2. Bēng 崩 refers to the death of an emperor.

  3. Hōng 薨 and cú 殂 / 徂 refers to the death of a senior official.

  4. Zú 卒 is specifically the death of a common citizen, but occasionally also used to refer to the death of senior persons like dukes.

  5. Piǎo 殍 and jǐn 殣 "(of common people) starve to death, die in the gutters" refer distinctly to the death of ordinary people.

  6. Mò 沒 / 歿 (ant. cún 存 "survive") and zhōng 終 are abstract elevated, polite words to use about the death of a significant person.

  7. Yì 殪 "get killed" is the result of violent action.

  8. Yāo (old: yǎo) 夭, yǎo 殀 and shāng 殤 (ant. shòu 壽 "long-lived") refer to an early and not just untimely death.

  9. Jí22 shì 即世 refers to the death of high-ranking personalities in the bureaucracy.

  10. Wáng 亡 "cease to be" is a polite and periphrastic way of referring to death.

  11. Xùn 殉 refers to the act of laying down one's life, dying for a cause.

  NB: The periphrastic vocabulary of Chinese referring to death is extraordinarily large. I have more than 900 terms - if modern locutions gēbēr sǐ 咯嘣兒死 "die" are included.

• MORE
  

  1. The most current and general word expressing the idea of something becoming more rather than less is yì 益 (ant. sǔn 損 "less and less").

  2. Mí 彌 focusses a difference in degree or number rather than on a process of increase.

  3. Yù 愈 (NB: shǎo 少 does not function as an antonym "less and less".) typically refers to a continuous or continuing dynamic increase or process.

  4. Gèng 更 and the rarer words fù 復 and yòu 又 "even more" indicate that the increase is from a level that is already high.

  5. Jiā 加 typically refers to an increase not in the intensity of something, but in the quantity or number.

  6. Yóu 尤 "particularly" singles out an item as instantiating something with particular intensity, more than most other comparable things.

  NB: 愈 may precede non-comparative verbs. Thus yù qǐ 愈起 "tend even more to occur" GUAN 47 could not have yì qǐ 益起. HF 19 has yù wáng 愈亡 "will tend ever more to fail". 愈至 "tend even more to arrive".

• EXILE
  

  1. The standard word for voluntary exile is wáng 亡.

  2. Chū 出 is a polite periphrastic term occasionally used for going into exile.

• SINK
  

  1. The most current general word for the process sinking is probably chén 沈 (ant. fú 浮 "float").

  2. Mò 沒 "get submerged" (ant. piāo 漂 "float") expresses the result of chén 沈 "sinking".

  3. Lún 淪 "sink into" (ant. fàn 汎 "float") has abstract usages where the word means "go under" and gets close in meaning to wáng 亡 "be ruined".

  4. Miǎn 湎 "get immersed in" is mostly used in transferred senses such as "get immersed in wine" and thus gets close in meaning to dān 耽 "get addicted to".

Word relations
• Subject: (DESTROY)國/STATE The dominant word is guó 國, and the word naturally focusses on the capital which defines the identity of the state, but from Warring States times the word does refer to the whole of the territory, as the term guó xiāo 國削 "the state was truncated" shows. 3 Attributions
• Result: (EXILE)出/EXILE Chū 出 is a polite periphrastic term occasionally used for going into exile. 2 Attributions
• Result: (DISAPPEAR)衰/DECLINE1 Attribution
• Ant: (DESTROY)立/ESTABLISH The current general word for setting up anything abstract or concrete is lì 立 and the almost equally common shè 設.
• Ant: (EXILE)返 / 反/RETURN Fǎn 反/返 (ant. wǎng 往 "set out for") is to get back to where one came from, and the focus is on whereto one returns. 及反 is "when he had got back", 未反 is "before he had god back". 反哭 is wailing upon one's return, not while returning.
• Ant: (DISAPPEAR)存/PERSIST The current general word for the persistence of something is cún 存(ant. wáng 亡 "cease to exist"). 11 Attributions
• Ant: (LOSE)得/OBTAIN The current general and highly abstract verb for obtaining any form of possession of anything abstract or concrete is dé 得 (ant. shī 失 "lose inadvertently"). 2 Attributions
• Ant: (DESTROY)昌/FLOURISH Chāng 昌 and xīng 興 (all ant. wáng 亡 "be ruined"), and lóng 隆 (ant. tì 替 "decline") refer primarily to the flourishing of political institutions and the like.
• Ant: (LACK)物/THING The current standard word for any physical or non-physical object or creature is wù 物.　GUODIAN 158 凡見者謂之物 1 Attribution
• Ant: (DESTROY)興/FLOURISH1 Attribution
• Ant: (LOSE)舉/WIN Bá 拔 and jǔ 舉 refers to conquering a place without necessarily keeping full control over it. 2 Attributions
• Ant: (ABSENT)存/EXIST Cún 存 focusses continued existence as opposed to disappearance or annihilation. See PERSIST. 1 Attribution
• Object: (DESTROY)國/STATE The dominant word is guó 國, and the word naturally focusses on the capital which defines the identity of the state, but from Warring States times the word does refer to the whole of the territory, as the term guó xiāo 國削 "the state was truncated" shows.
• Contrast: (DISAPPEAR)死/DIE The dominant general word is sǐ 死 (ant. shēng 生"be alive"), and this can refer to the death of plants as well as animals or men. 2 Attributions
• Assoc: (DESTROY)亂/CHAOS The very dominant word in this group is luàn 亂 (ant. zhì 治 "state of good government, state of good order") which refers to all kinds of reprehensible lack of order. 4 Attributions
• Assoc: (FLEE)走/FLEE The current general word for illicit disappearance from where one has some obligation to remain is zǒu 走. 1 Attribution
• Assoc: (DIE)敗/DEFEAT The current general word for defeating someoneor some state in any form of battle is bài 敗. 1 Attribution
• Assoc: (DESTROY)危/DANGER The current standard general word for real objective as well as perceived imminent danger is wēi 危 (ant. ān 安 "peace"). 4 Attributions
• Assoc: (DESTROY)敗/DEFEAT The current general word for defeating someoneor some state in any form of battle is bài 敗. 1 Attribution
• Assoc: (DIE)死/DIE The dominant general word is sǐ 死 (ant. shēng 生"be alive"), and this can refer to the death of plants as well as animals or men. 2 Attributions
• Assoc: (DESTROY)滅/DESTROY Miè 滅 refers to the physical destruction of cities or states, and the word implies the use of external military force, and typically military resistance. 2 Attributions
• Assoc: (FLEE)逃/FLEE Táo 逃 refers to an attempted or successful escape to a place, or from any difficult predicament (for which see AVOID), occasionally also from a person or group of persons. Thus to 逃 a state is to flee TO a state, to 逃 a predicament is to flee FROM a predicament, and to 逃 a person is to flee FROM that person. 1 Attribution
• Assoc: (DISAPPEAR)闕/DISAPPEAR Què 闕 can refer to the disappearance of a practice.
• Synon: (DESTROY)敗/DESTROY Bài 敗 and zéi 賊 are currently used for the destruction of abstract things such as dé 德 "virtue". 1 Attribution